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THE  LIBRARY  OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF 

NORTH  CAROLINA 


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From  the   Library  of 

Elizabeth  Morton  Johnston 
Patterson 


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Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Arciiive 

in  2011  witii  funding  from 

University  of  Nortii  Carolina  at  Chapel  Hill 


http://www.archive.org/details/truestoryofabrahObroo 


A   boy's   first   sight   of    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

'  Fear  not,  Abraham  !    I  am  thy  shield  and  thy  exceeding  great  reward." 

See  page  !63. 


THE  TRUE  S3:ORY  OF 


ABRAHAM    UHC^^, 


K^ 


THE   AMERICAN 


TOLD  FOR  BOYS  AND   GIRLS. 

.  -) 

BY 

ELBRIDGE    S.   BROOKS 

Author  of  "  The  Story  of  Our  War  with  Spain,"  "  The  American  Soldibr," 

"The  American  Sailor,"  "The  True  Story  of  the  United  States," 

"The  True  Story  of  Columbus,"  "Washington,"  "Grant," 

"Franklin,"  "  Lafayette,"  and  many  others. 


ILLUSTRATED 


BOSTOIT 
LOTHROP,   LEE    &   SHEPARD   CO. 


PRINTED    IN    U.S.A. 


Copyright,  1896, 

BY 

LOTHROP  Publishing  Company. 


All  rights  reserved. 


666341  ea.i<^    B/,  t^+) 


i 


PREFACE. 


Columbus  the  discoverer  of  our  country  and  Washington  the  father  of 
bur  country — -these  two  famous  ones  has  this  series  of  "  Children's  Lives  of 
Great  Men  "  recalled  for  young  Americans.  Now  comes  the  third  and  crown- 
ing figure  in  the  series  —  that  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  the  savior  of  his  country 
ind,  above  all  others, —  the  American. 
;^  His  story  is  as  marvellous  as  a  fairy  tale  and  yet  as  simple  as  the  truth. 

Sprung  from  nothing  he  rose  to  the  highest  eminence,  and  died  a  martyr  for 
liberty,  union  and  the  rights  of  man.  Upon  his  life,  through  four  terrible 
years,  hung  the  destinies  of  this  republic  and  the  redemption  of  a  race.  To- 
day, the  world  reveres  him  as  one  of  the  most  eminent  rulers  of  any  time ;  the 
future  will  yet  place  him  where  he  rightly  belongs  —  one  of  the  world's  great- 
est men,  perhaps,  the  greatest. 

For  the  boys  and  girls  of  America,  brought  up  in  the  atmosphere  of 
liberty,  of  justice  and  of  patriotism,  Abraham  Lincoln  the  man  of  the  peo- 
ple, has  an  especial  claim  to  reverence.  He  stands  as  a  type  —  as,  before  all 
others,  the  American. 

In  the  preface  to  the  "The  True  Story  of  George  Washington,"  the 
writer  quoted,  for  boys  and  girls,  a  sentiment  from  one  of  the  noblest  of 
American  thinkers  and  authors,  James  Russell  Lowell.  This  introduction  to 
the  "True  Story  of  Abraham  Lincoln,"  can  not  be  more  fittingly  closed  than 
with  the  splendid  tribute  of  this  same  prophetic  poet,  in  his  noble  "Com- 
memorative Ode, "  which  every  boy  and  girl  of  America  should  some  day  read : 

"  These  all  are  gone ;  and  standing  like  a  tower, 

Our  children  shall  behold  his  fame, 
The  kindly,  earnest,  brave,  far-seeing  man, 

Sagacious,  patient,  dreading  praise,  not  blame, 
New  birth  of  our  new  soil,  the  first  American." 

E.  S.  B. 


CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  I. 

HOW    SOMETHING    CAME    FROM    NOTHING       ....-.=  11 

CHAPTER  II. 

A    BOY    OF    THE    BACKWOODS  ........  e  3I 

'  CHAPTER   III. 

HOW    ABRAHAM    SAW    THE    WORLD 49 

CHAPTER    IV. 

HOW    THE    RAIL-SPLITTER    RAISED    HIMSELF  .  .  .  .  c  c  6? 

CHAPTER  V. 

CAPTAIN    LINCOLN       ...........  84 

CHAPTER    VI. 

HOW    THE    STOREKEEPER    GREW    AMBITIOUS o  ICO 

CHAPTER   VII. 

THE    HONORABLE    MR.     LINCOLN  ........  US 

CHAPTER   VIII. 

HOW  THE  COUNTY  LAWYER  WON  FAME   .      .     .      .     .     .     .      I3I 


CONTENTS. 
CHAPTER    IX. 

HOW    THE    BACKWOODS    BOY    BECAME    PRESIDENT  .....  I49 

CHAPTER   X. 

HOW    THE    FLAT-BOATMAN    GUIDED    THE    SHIP    OF    STATE       .  .  ,  c  167 

CHAPTER    XI. 

HOW    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN    MADE    HIS    NAME    IMMORTAL  ,  ,  .  <  187 

CHAPTER   XII. 

WHY    THE    PEOPLE    WOULD    NOT     "  SWAP    HORSES  "  .....  SOJ 

CHAPTER  XIII, 

ABRAHAM    LINCOLN    THE    AMERICAN    ........  223 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


A  boy's  first  sight  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

"  The  dark  and  bloody  ground  "  .         . 

Daniel  Boone        ..... 

The  Birthplace  of  Lincoln    . 

"  Thomas  Lincoln  loved  to  sit  around" 

Lincoln  birthplace  and  spring 

On  Knob  Creek   ..... 

"  He  liked  to  lay  off  "  . 

Off  for  a  day's  fishing  .... 

Little  Abe's  peril  .... 

Little  Abe  and  the  soldier     . 

The  man  who  was  president  when  Lincoln  was  a 

"  They  lived  like  gypsies  "    . 

"This  was  Abraham  Lincoln  "     . 

Going  to  bed         ..... 

"  He  bade  the  children  good-bye  " 

"  Something  like  comfort  "  . 

The  traveling  schoolmaster  . 

Abraham  Lincoln  and  the  shingle  scrapbook 

"  He  was  a  great  reader  "     . 

"  He  was  '  hired  man  '  and  '  chore-boy  '  " 

On  the  farm  ..... 

Abe  carrying  the  corn-crib  post    . 

i'  He  was  always  ready  to  spout  " 

*'  He  was  the  champion  wrestler" 

A  shooting-match  on  the  border  . 

Lincoln  "  tending  store  "... 

A  flat-boat  cruise  .... 

The  hero  of  the  cotton  bales  (  Jackson) 

"  They  cut  her  adrift  "  ... 

"  Ever  willing,  handy  and  helpful  " 


Frontis. 


boy 


(Monroe) 


13 
'S 
16 

19 

20 
21 
22 

23 

24 
25 
27 
29 

33 
35 
39 
41 

42 

43 
47 
5' 
52 
S3 
55 
5S 
59 
62 

63 
63 
64 
66 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


A"Vandoo"       .        .        .        , 

"  Already  famous  as  a  rail-splitter  " 

Floating  down  to  New  Orleans    . 

On  the  levee  at  New  Orleans 

In  Offutt's  store   .... 

The  "  Clary-Grove  Boys  "     . 

**  He  borrowed  every  book  in  New  Salem 

"Who  should  show  up  but  Abe  Lincoln  ' 

"  I  can  rock  and  read  too  "   . 

A  race  for  life       .... 

Black  Hawk,  Chief  of  the  Sacs     . 

A  refugee  from  the  massacre 

"  Men,  this  must  not  be  "      . 

In  the  Black  Hawk  War 

Lincoln  coming  home  from  the  war 

Floating  down  the  Illinois    . 

"  On  the  navigation  of  the  Sangamon 

Henry  Clay  and  "  Ashland  " 

"  People  did  not  receive  many  letters  in  those  dayi 

"  A.  Lincoln,  Postmaster  "  . 

"  He's  a  perfect  take-in  " 

"  He  led  the  rest  round  the  field  " 

Lincoln  in  1840     .... 

Lincoln  and  the  "  mired  "  pig 

A  station  on  the  "Underground  Railway" 

"  Law  "  answered  the  boy     . 

How  Lincoln  studied  law 

"He  would  never  take  a  case  he  did  not  bel 

A  pickaninny         .... 

"  Bill  is  free "       .        .        .        . 

Lincoln's  home  in  Springfield       . 

"  On  the  circuit  "  ... 

Daniel  Webster  of  Massachusetts 

Henry  Clay  of  Kentucky 

Stephen  A.  Douglas     . 

The  Lincoln-Douglas  debate 

Abraham  Lincoln  of  Illinois 

"  They  will  kill  you,  Abe  "    . 

On  the  way  to  Washington  . 

The  inauguration  of  President  Lincoln 


68 

70 

72 
72 
76 
78 
82 

8S 
85 
88 
89 
9' 
93 
95 
97 
93 
101 

lOZ 

108 
109 
112 

"3 
121 
124 
127 
132 
'33 
138 
141 
144 

'45 
147 
151 
152 

'34 
'57 
161 
165 
i6g 
174 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Major  Anderson 171 

Boys  of  '61    .         .         . 17^ 

Lincoln  and  his  chief  advisers       .............  177 

Confederate  leaders  and  generals          ......,.,,..  181 

General  Winfield  Scott 183 

Noted  American  abolitionists 1S9 

A  "  contraband  "  ................  193 

First  draft  of  the  Emancipation  Proclamation      ..........  196 

Boys  ran  through  the  streets  crying  "  Extra  ! "     .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .  201 

Defenders  of  the  Union         ..............  207 

"  From  the  President!"         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .  213 

Two  famous  men  in  Washington  (Lincoln  and  Grant)          ........  217 

The  last  speech      ................  21S 

The  assassination  of  Abraham  Lincoln         ...........  219 

"  You  see  I've  let  my  whiskers  grow,"  he  said      ..........  224 

"  Who  is  this  little  boy  ?  " 226 

Tad  and  his  father         ...............  228 

"  My  boy,  my  bill  is  a  large  one  "          ............  229 

The  Lincoln  monument  at  Springfield 231 

1809-1846-1361     237 

The  American 23S 


THE    TRUE    STORY    OF 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 


CHAPTER    I. 


HOW    SOMETHING    CAME    FROM    NOTHING. 


EAR  the  story  of  Abraham 
Lincoln,  the  man  who  saved 
America.  It  is  not  an  old  story. 
\t  belongs  to  our  own  times. 
I,  who  write  these  words,  saw, 
when  I  was  a  boy,  the  Great 
President,  then  an  untried  man, 
and  have  loved  him  ever  since. 
To-day,  that  untried  man  is  rev- 
erenced as  one  of  the  mightiest 
men  of  the  world,  and  stands  foremost  among  them  as.- 
above  all  others,  ^ke  American. 

When  you  study  Latin  you  will  come  across  an  old,  oid 
sentence  that  means :  /rom  nothing,  nothing  comes.  It 
seems  true ;  and  yet,  how  many  of  the  world's  great  men 
have,  as  a  later  saying  runs,  "  sprung  from  nothing." 


i 


12  ffOW  SOMETHING   CAME  FROM  NOTHING. 

Of  no  man  was  this  later  saying  more  true  than  of 
Abraham  Lincoln.     Listen  to  his  story. 

Very  nearly  ninety  years  ago  a  homely  little  baby  was 
born  into  the  smallest  and  humblest  and  meanest  of  homes. 
It  was  a  miserable  little  cabin  that  you  would  hardly  call  a 
hut,  placed  on  a  stony  hillside,  in  what  is  now  the  central 
section  of  the  great  state  of  Kentucky. 

Ninety  years  ago  the  country  thereabouts  was  a  wilder- 
ness. Great  forests  hedged  it  around.  The  settlers'  cabins 
stood  in  what  were  called  "  clearings,"  where  the  trees  had 
been  cut  down  and  some  of  the  stumps  had  been  either  burned 
or  pulled  away  —  just  enough  to  get  a  little  land  on  which  to 
raise  corn  or  tobacco. 

It  was  hard  farming  there.  It  was  all  new  land.  Only 
a  few  years  before,  the  Indians  had  left  it,  after  many  bloody 
battles  with  the  white  men.  Bears  and  panthers,  wolves 
and  catamounts  and  other  beasts  lived  in  the  thick  shadows 
of  the  woods,  and  there  men  hunted  for  food  —  for  deer  and 
bears  and  turkeys  and  the  wildest  of  game.  Its  streams  and 
rivers  were  full  of  fish.  Even  the  buffalo  had  .not  entirely 
gone  from  the  regions  beyond  the  forests;  while,  in  its  rocks 
and  undergrowth,  foxes  had  their  dens,  the  lynx  his  lair,  and 
nobody  was  safe  in  the  woods  unless  he  had  with  him  his 
gun,  his  axe,  or  his  hunting-knife.  It  was  Kan-tuck-kee  — 
"the  dark  and  bloody  ground  ";  it  was  the  home  of  Daniel 
Boone,  most  famous  of  American  hunters. 


"the  dark  and  bloody  ground." 
("  Only  a  few  years  before,  the  Indian  had  left  it,  after  many  bloody  battles  with  the  white  men. ") 


HOW  SOMETHING    CAME  FROM  NOTHING.  15 

On  the  banks  of  a  small  stream  known  as  the  "  big  south 
fork "  of  Nolin's  Creek,  in  what  is  now  Larue  County, 
Kentucky,  three  miles  from  the  present  village  of  Hodgens- 
ville,  and  fifty  miles  south  of  Louisville,  stood  the  tumble- 
down log  cabin  in  which  lived  Thomas  Lincoln  and  Nancy 
Hanks,  his  wife.  And  there,  on  Sunday,  the  twelfth  day  of 
February,  in  the  year  eighteen  hundred  and  nine,  Abraham 
Lincoln  was  born. 

It  was  a  miserable  little  log  cabin,  scarcely  fit,  you  would 
think,  to  stable  a  cow  in ;  but  it  was 
the  birthplace  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 
The  "  farm  "  was  the  roughest  sort 
of  a  clearing  —  rocky  and  weedy  and 
scrubby  —  about  the  last  place  in 
the  world  you  would  pick  out  for  a 
home,  or  as  a  spot  in  which  to 
spend  your  vacation  in  the  country; 
but  it  was  the  birthplace  of  Abraham  Lincoln ;  and  some 
day  it  will  be  marked  by  a  stately  monument,  and  visited 
by  tourists  with  as  much  of  interest  and  as  much  of  rev- 
erence as  are  paid  to  the  birthplaces  of  Washington,  of 
Shakspere,  of  Cromwell  and  Napoleon.  Hunt  up  the  place 
on  your  mxap  of  Kentucky ;  look  well  on  the  page  which  gives 
you  a  picture  of  the  house  as  it  looks  to-day,  and  never 
cease  to  be  attracted  to  the  spot  as  the  birthplace  of  the 
Great  American. 

The  place  is  even  more  attractive-looking   than  it    was 


i6  HO IV  SOMETHING    CAME  FROM  NOTHING. 

ninety  years  ago,  when  Thomas  Lincoln  picked  it  out  for  a 
home,  and  put  up  his  little  log  shanty.  For  Thomas  Lin- 
coln, the  father  of  Abraham,  was  not  the  kind  of  a  man  to 
"  fix  up  "  things.  He  was  as  lazy  as  loafing,  as  shiftless  as 
could  be,  and  as  poor  as  poverty.  He  was  a  carpenter  with- 
out any  trade,  a  farmer  without  any  crop,  a  man  without 
ambition,  energy,  or  what  you  boys  call  "  sand."  He  could 
not  read  ;  he  could  not  write ;  and  he  did  not  care  to  learn. 
He  loved  to  sit  around  and  tell  stories  rather  than  work,  and 
though  he  had  some  affection  and  some  friendly  ways,  he 
was,  after  all,  a  hard  drinker,  a  ready  fighter  and  an  uncom- 
fortable sort  of  a  father.  He  was  of  the  class  long  known  in 
the  South  as  "poor  whites"  —  and,  of  these,  he  was  one  of 
the  poorest.  Yet,  somehow,  he  managed  to  get  a  superior 
woman  for  his  wife — one  who  will  be  forever  famous  in 
history  as  the  mother  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

Nancy  Hanks,  when  she  married  Thomas  Lincoln,  was 
a  young  woman  of  twenty-three.  She  was  good-looking, 
could  read  and  write,  and,  if  she  could  have  had  one-tenth 
of  the  chance  that  comes  to  a  girl  of  to-day,  might  have 
developed  into  a  beautiful,  superior,  and  noble  woman. 

She  had  very  few  of  the^e  opportunities  as  a  girl ;  she 
had  none  whatever  as  a  woman.  In  Thomas  Lincoln's 
humble,  shiftless  and  poverty-stricken  home  she  could  do 
nothing  but  work  hard  to  give  her  children  food  and  clothes. 
They  did  not  get  much  of  either. 

She  had  three  children  —  a  daughter  named  Sarah,  a  son 


/ 


HOW  SOMETHING    CAME  FROM  NOTHING. 


19 


Abraham  and   a  younger  son   Thomas,  who  died  when  he 
was  a  baby. 

Abraham  Lincoln  never  forgot  his  mother.  His  earliest 
recollection  of  her  was  of  the  days  when  he  and  his  sister 
Sarah,  a  year  older  than  he,  sat  at  their  mother's  feet  in  that 
poor    little    log 


cabin  at  Nolin's 
Creek,  while 
she,  as  well  as 
she  was  able, 
told  them  sto- 
ries and  taught 
them  to  spell 
and  read. 

Abraham 
thousfht  his 
mother  could  do 
anything.        In 


"THOMAS   LINCOLN   LOVED   TO   SIT  AROUND   AND   TELL    STORIES." 


her  rough  way  she  certainly  did  much  for  her  boy.  She 
could  hunt  as  well  as  a  man  ;  and  many  a  time,  when  food 
was  scarce  in  the  home  and  her  husband  was  not  to  be 
depended  upon,  she  would  take  down  the  rifle  and  go  out 
and  shoot  a  bear  or  a  deer,  skin  it,  clean  it,  and  cook  it  for 
the  family  meat.  She  made  the  deerskin  into  clothes  ;  she 
worked  herself  to  death  for  her  husband  and  her  children  ; 
but,  while  doing  this,  she  laid  in  her  son  the  foundations  of 
truth,  and  honor,  and  purity,  and  goodness,  and  the  ambition 


20 


HO  IF  SOMETHING    CAME  FROM  NOTHING. 


:$ 


J' 


to  do  something  and  be  something  in  the  world,  that  helped 
him  all  through  life.     So,  whatever  her  lack  of  opportunities 

or  ability,  let  us  never  forget  the 
mother  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

When  the  boy  was  about  four 
years  old,  his  father,  in  some  way, 
became  possessed  of  a  much 
larger  and  better  farm  on  what 
was  known  as  Knob  Creek,  near 
where  it  joins  with  another  stream, 
called  the  Rolling  Fork.  It  was 
only  a  few  miles  from  the  miser- 
able little  hillside  patch  on  Nolin's 
Creek,  but  the  land  was  much  bet- 
ter and  might  have  been  worked 
into  a  fine  farm  of  over  two  hun- 
dred acres. 

Thomas  Lincoln,  however,  did 
not  like  to  work.  To  briny  two 
hundred  acres  under  culti^'ation 
was  altogether  too  big  a  job  for  him;  so  he  simply  cleared 
and  farmed  enough  to  give  his  family  "  a  little  meal  and  a 
little  milk,"  and  that  had  to  satisfy  them. 

It  takes  pluck  to  keep  a  farm  up  to  the  mark,  and  this 
Thomas  Lincoln  never  had.  He  was  too  lazy  to  w"ork  and 
too  poor  to  keep  the  good  piece  of  farmland  that  had  come 
into  his  possession.     Before  Abraham  was  seven  years  old 


THE   LINCOLN    ErRTlIPLACE    AND   THE 
LINCOLN    SPRING. 


HOW   SOMETHING    CAME   FROM  NOTHING. 


the  place  on  Knob  Creek  had  to  be  given  up,  and  the  family 
went  wandering  away  towards  a  new  home. 

This  new  home  was  many  miles  away  in  the  southern 
part  of  the  new  State  of  Indiana.  It  was  a  long  journey 
and  a  hard  one,  but  the  Lincoln  family  set  out  on  it,  bidding 
good-bye  forever  to  their  "  old  Kentucky  home." 

It  was  in  that  old  Kentucky  home,  however,  that  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  had  grown 
to  boyhood.  It  had 
been  a  hard  and  com- 
fortless "  little  boy- 
hood." It  had  given 
him  none  of  the  ad- 
vantages and  none  of 
the  childish  pleasures 
that  make  the  memory 
of  "  home,  sweet  home  " 
dear  to  so    many  men 

and  women.  There  was  but  little  fun  and  frolic  about  it ; 
there  were  no  games  to  play  and  no  boys  and  girls  to  play 
with ;  the  nearest  school  was  eight  miles  away,  and  the 
boy's  father  thought  going  to  school  a  waste  of  time. 

His  mother  was  hard-worked,  sad-eyed  and  discouraged ; 
but  she  declared  her  girl  and  boy  should  go  to  school,  and 
so,  for  a  few  weeks,  once  in  a  while,  the  brother  and  sister 
would  trudge  off  eight  miles  to  the  log  schoolhouse,  with 
nothing  to  eat  but    corn    bread,  and    little  to  learn    except 


ON   KNOB   CREEK. 


HOU'  SOMETHING    CAME   FROM  NOTHING. 


spelling  and  arithmetic.  Even  this  schooling  was  short, 
and,  in  all  his  life,  Abraham  Lincoln  never  went  to  school 
more  than  a  year,  counting  all  the  days  together. 

So  he  was  a  lonely  little  fellow,  in  his  home  on  Knob 
Creek.  His  father  hated  work,  but  was  perfectly  willing  to 
have  his  wife  and  son  and  daughter  work ;  and  he  put  many 
hard  tasks  on  the  small  and  scrawny  eight-year-old. 

I   may   as  well  tell  you,  however,  that   Abraham   never 


"HE   LIKED   TO    'LAY   OFF.' 


really  loved  work.  But  what  boy  does?  He  liked  to  "lay 
off."  He  liked  to  roam  into  the  woods,  as  far  as  it  was  safe, 
and  watch  the  birds  and  animals  and  all  the  life  that  fills  the 
great  forest.  He  had  some  lonely  little  games  of  his  own, 
and  liked  to  play  by  himself,  when  his  father  would  let  him, 
among  the  scanty  shavings  of  the  rarel3--used  shed  which  his 
father  the  carpenter  spoke  of  as  "  the  shop." 


HOW  SOMETHING    CAME  FROM  NOTHING. 


23 


THE   SPOT   WHERE   LINCOLN    WAS   BORN. 
{Near  Hodgensvillc,  Ky.) 


He  liked  to  fish,  when  he  did  not  have  to  ;  and  we  are 
told  that  his  only  recollection  of  the  war  with  England, 
called  the  War  of  181 2,  which  was  fought  when  he  was  a 
small  boy,  was  meeting  an  American  soldier  in  the  woods 
and  giving  him  the  only  fish  he  had  caught  that  day, 
because  his  mother  had  told  him  always  to  be  good  to  the 
soldiers,  who  were  fighting  for  his  protection. 

He  never  cared  much  to  trap  or  to  hunt.  It  is  danger- 
ous work  for  so  small  a  boy  ;  and,  moreover,  it  was  work 
Free  PubHr  Library,  Newark,  N,  J. 


24 


HOW  SOMETIIIXG    CAME   FROM  NOTHING. 


and  not  play  —  for  that  was   often  the  only  way  to  get  any- 
thing to  eat. 

But  he  did,  once  in  a  while,  go  partridge-hunting^,  boy- 
fashion,  even  when  he  was  a  little  fellow ;  and,  this  very  year, 
there  was  still  living,  near  Knob  Creek,  an  old  man  who  tells 
people  how,  when  he  was  about  eleven    years  old,  he  and 


LITTLE    ABE  S   PERIL. 


little  eight-year-old  "Abe  Lincoln"  went  off  one  day  par- 
tridge-hunting, and  how,  when  they  were  trying  to  cross 
Knob  Creek  on  a  log  (•'  cooning  across,"  the  old  man  called 
it),  little  "Abe"  rolled  off  into  the  water  and  would  have 
been  drowned,  if  the  older  boy  had  not  fished  him  out  with 
a  svcamore  branch.      Do  \o\x  wonder  that  this  old   man  has 


LITTLE    "ADE"    and    THE    SULDIIE. 


HOW  SOMETHING    CAME   FROM  NOTHING. 


27 


All  that  he  was  able  to  get  for  his  good   Ken 


been  proud  to  tell  the  story?     It  is  a  great  thing  to  be  able 
to  boast  that  you  once  saved  the  life  of  a  hero. 

When  Abraham  Lincoln  was  eight  years  old,  his  father, 
as  I  have  told  you,  concluded  that  he  could  not  get  along  in 
Kentucky  and  so  "  pulled  up  stakes,"  as  they  said,  for  the 

West. 

He  went  off  first  on  his  own  hook  to  find  a  place  for  the 

new  home 

tucky     farm     of    two 
hundred  acres  and  his 
little    log    cabin    was 
twenty    dollars    in 
money  and  ten  barrels 
of  whiskey.     A  barrel 
of    whiskey    was     as 
good     as     money     in 
those    days;     it     was 
worth    about    twenty- 
five  dollars,  and  men, 
in  that   western  coun- 
try,   were     always    as 
ready   to  trade  for  whiskey  as  for  cash ;  they  did  not  drink 
it  up,  they  "  swapped  it  off  "  for  something  else,  so  it  was 
the  same  as  money  to  them ;  and  houses  and  land,  tools  and 
cattle,   food   and  clothing  were  often  bought  and  sold  for  so 
much  whiskey  in  exchange. 

According  to  this,  Thomas   Lincoln  had  received  for  his 


THE  MAN  WHO  WAS  PRESIDF.NT  WHEN  LINCOLN  WAS  A  BOY. 
(  James  Monroe,  author  of  the  '^Monroe  Doctrine") 


28  HOW  SOMETHING    CAME  FROM  NOTHING. 

Kentucky  farm  about  three  hundred  dollars.  He  built  a 
raft,  loaded  it  with  some  furniture  and  ten  barrels  of  whis- 
key, and  with  his  twenty  dollars  and  his  kit  of  carpenter's 
tools  he  floated  off,  down  the  Rolling  Fork  to  the  Ohio 
River  on  a  search  for  Southern  Indiana  and  a  new  home. 

Abraham  pushed  his  father's  raft  from  the  river  bank 
and  then  went  back  to  the  log  cabin  that  was  soon  to  be 
no  longer  his  home,  to  help  his  mother  until  his  father  came 
back  to  report. 

He  went  to  school  a  few  days,  worked  about  the  cabin, 
snared  a  few  birds  for  dinner,  chopped  wood  or  fished  and 
did  a  good  deal  of  thinking  things  over,  while  his  mother 
went  out  to  shoot  a  deer  to  keep  the  family  in  meat. 

At  last  his  father  came  back.  He  had  not  met  with  real 
good  luck,  he  said.  Somehow,  he  never  did.  When  he  had 
poled  his  raft  into  the  broad  Ohio  River,  the  current  had 
floated  the  wobbly  craft  against  some  sunken  snags,  tipped 
it,  turned  it  over,  and  spilled  Thomas  Lincoln,  his  carpenter's 
kit,  his  furniture  and  his  ten  barrels  of  whiskey,  into  the 
river. 

For  once  in  his  life  he  worked  hard.  People  came  to 
his  aid  and,  after  much  fishing  and  dragging,  the  kit  of  car- 
penter's tools  and  the  most  of  the  whiskey  and  furniture 
were  pulled  ashore,  loaded  on  an  ox-cart  and  carried  through 
the  forests  to  an  "oak-opening"  where  there  was  a  settler's 
cabin,  about  eight  miles  from  the  river. 

Then,  so  Thomas  told  his  family,  after  he  had  taken  care 


HOW  SOMETHING   CAME  FROM  NOTHING. 


29 


of  his  rescued  goods,  he  walked  straight  into  the  forest  to 
hunt  up  a  spot  for  a  home.  He  had  found  a  place,  he 
declared,  that  just  suited  him,  as  it  would  them,  and  they 
must  all  get  ready  to  go  at  once  with  him  to  Indiana. 

It  did  not  take  the  Lincolns  long  to  get  ready.  All  that 
they  had  to  pack  up  were  a  few  pots,  pans  and  kettles,  some 
bedding  and  less  clothes.  These  they  loaded  on  the  backs 
of  two  borrowed  horses,  and, 
trudging  along  on  foot,  they 
pushed  into  the  western  forests 
on  the  way  to  their  Indiana  home, 
ninety  miles  away. 

Through  thickets  and  under- 
brush, fording,  swimming  or  raft- 


ing    rivers,    living    like    gypsies. 


"lived  like  gypsies." 


plodding  along  like  tramps,  they 

finally  reached  the  settler's  cabin 

where  Thomas  Lincoln  had  stored 

his  cargo  of  shipwrecked  goods. 

There    they  managed  to  hire  or 

borrow  a  wagon,  loaded  it  with  their  little  stock  of  worldly 

goods,    and    literally  chopping  a    path    through    the    dense 

forests  they  finally  reached  the  spot  which  Thomas  Lincoln 

had  selected  for  their  home. 

It  sounds  very  adventurous  and  "  pic-nicky,"  does  it  not? 
No  doubt  little  Abraham  enjoyed  the  excitement  and  novelty 
of  this  kind  of  "  house-moving,"  but  often,  I  imagine,  he  was 


^o  JfOJV  SOMETHING    CAME   FROM  NOJHIiXG. 

tired,  wet,  cold,  footsore  and  uncomfortable,  and  wondered 
when  they  would  get  to  the  end  of  their  hard  journey. 

The  end  came  at  last.  The  place  selected  by  Abraham's 
father  was  near  the  stream  called  Little  Pigeon  Creek,  a  mile 
and  a  half  from  the  present  town  of  Gentryville  in  Spencer 
Countv,  Southern  Indiana. 

It  \\'as  a  grassy  knoll  in  the  heart  of  a  vast  forest.  But 
4;he  father  assured  his  family  that  it  was  just  the  spot  for 
them  ;  the  land,  he  said,  was  rich  and  fertile,  the-  forests 
were  full  of  game,  the  creek  was  alive  with  fish,  and  all  they 
had  to  do  was  to  settle  down  and   make  themselves  a  home. 

The  first  thing  needful  was  a  house.  But,  though 
Thomas  Lincoln  was  a  carpenter,  he  had  no  desire  to  spend 
much  time  on  a  buildino". 

O 

"We'll  just  put  up  a  half-faced  camp,  now,"  he  said; 
"  and,  later  on,  we'll  run  up  something  better." 

Now,  a  half-faced  camp  is  a  good-enough  shelter  for  a 
summer  night  in  the  woods  ;  but  who  would  think  of  living 
in  such  a  thing,  not  for  a  week  or  a  month  only,  but  for  a 
year  and  more — including  a  cold  winter? 

Take  four  uprights  for  four  corner  posts  —  the  two  rear 
one';  being  higher  than  the  front  ones  ;  from  the  forked  tops 
of  these  corner  posts  stretch  four  others  across  to  form  the 
edges  of  the  roof ;  lay  some  others  across  these  edge  pieces 
to  make  a  sloping  roof,  and  cover  these  with  thin  slabs  or 
"edgings"  to  keep  out  the  rain  ;  around  their  sides,  set  up 
poles  close  together  and  "  chink  in  "  between  them  with  chips 


A   BOY  OF  THE  BACKWOODS.  31 

or  clay;  hang  up  some  deer  skins  along  the  lowest  front — ■ 
and  there  you  have  a  half-faced  camp.  It  is  scarcely  shelter 
enough  for  a  horse  or  a  cow ;  and  yet,  in  such  a  rough,  cold 
and  comfortless  hut  did  the  Lincoln  family  live  for  more 
than  a  year  —  summer  and  winter,  just  because  the  "head 
of  the  house  "  was   too  lazy  to   put  up  anything  better. 

It  was  the  first  Indiana  home  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 
Scarcely  the  sort  of  a  olace,  was  it,  that  one  would  think 
of  as  the  first  step  toward  the  stately  White  House  at 
Washington? 


CHAPTER    IL 


A    BOY    OF    THE    BACKWOODS. 


'  I  "HE  future  president  of  the  United  States  was  eight 
-*-  years  old  when  he  spent  the  winter  with  his  father, 
mother  and  sister  in  the  "  half-faced  camp "  on  Pigeon 
Creek. 

He  was  growing  fast.  Already  he  was  a  long-legged, 
spindling,  uncouth  little  fellow,  with  a  shock  of  black  hair, 
dreamy-looking  eyes,  a  hatchet  face,  and  a  skin  tanned  and 
sallow  from  his  out-door  life. 

He  was  not    a   pretty   boy;   I    doubt,   even,    if    he  was 


32  A   BOY  OF  THE  BACKWOODS. 

healthy-looking.  But  his  muscles  were  hard  and  tough  ;  he 
was  sturdy,  strong  and  wiry;  and  he  could  endure  cold  and 
heat,  poor  food  and  privation,  even  better  than  many  a 
trained  athlete  who,  to-day,  puts  himself  into  what  is  called 
"  condition." 

He  wore  a  homespun  shirt  of  cotton  and  wool,  woven  by 
his  mother  and  colored  with  a  dye  made  from  roots  and 
bark;  he  had  deerskin  breeches  and  a  deerskin  hunting- 
shirt,  while  his  feet,  ^vhcn  he  did  not  go  barefoot,  were  shod 
with  deerskin  moccasins;  on  his  head  was  a  queer  cap  cut 
from  a  raccoon  skin  with  the  tail  left  on  and  hanging  down 
the  back  of  the  boy's  neck. 

This  was  Abraham  Lincoln,  dressed  in  the  best  his 
mother  could  do — a  boy  of  the  frontier,  in  the  days  when 
there  were  few  necessities,  less  comforts,  and  no  advantages 
for  boys  and  girls  ;  when  life  was  hard  and  home  was  dreary, 
and  men  and  women  were  rough,  careless,  uncultivated  and 
uncouth  —  the  western  backwoods  life  of  eighty  years  ago. 

Be  glad,  boys  and  girls,  that  you  have  comfortable 
homes,  pleasant  schools,  and  all  the  advantages  that  wealth 
and  progress  and  what  is  called  public  spirit  have  secured, 
largely  through  the  energy,  the  sacrifices  and  the  ambition 
of  the  men  and  women  of  those  hard  days  of  rough  living. 

It  was,  indeed,  rough  living  in  the  Lincoln  home  on 
Little  Pigeon  Creek.  When  he  w^as  "  good  and  ready " 
Thomas  Lincoln  set  about  building  a  better  shelter  for  his 
family  than  the  forlorn  "  half-faced  camp." 


A   BOY  OF  THE  BACKWOODS. 


33 


The  new  building  was  not  such  a  great  improvement; 
but  it  was  more  like  a  house.  It  was  a  rough  cabin  of  logs, 
without  door,  window  or  floor.  But  it  seemed  so  much  bet- 
ter than  the  shanty  in  which  they  had  been  living,  that 
Abraham  and  his  sister  felt  quite  princely. 

The    boy    had   helped   at  building  the   new   house ;  and 


S'^"-- 


"THIS   WAS   ABRAHAM    LINCOLN    DRESSED    IN    HIS    BEST." 

when  it  was  finished  and  he  could  climb  up  to  the  loft  by 
the  ladder  of  pegs  which  he  had  driven  into  the  logs,  he 
would  fling  himself  down  on  his  bed  of  dried  leaves  and 
think  it  all  quite  comfortable  and  homelike. 

You  would  have  turned  up  your  nose  at  such  accommo- 
dations and  said  you  never  could  feel  at  home  in  such  a 
place ;  but  little  Abraham  Lincoln  had  never  known  any- 
thing better.  To  him,  the  home-made  furniture  of  three- 
legged  stools,  rickety  pole-bedstead  built  into  the  logs,  and 


34  A   BOY  OF  THE   BACKWOODS. 

hewn-log  table  were  sufficient  to  sit  on,  sleep  on  and  eat  on. 
What  more  could  a  boy  need  ? 

The  new  home  was  in  a  great  game  country.  All  one 
needed  to  do  for  meat  was  to  go  out  and  shoot  it  —  deer  or 
bear  or  partridge  or  turkey;  there  were  fish  to  be  caught  in 
the  streams  near  by ;  in  the  cleared  land  around  the  house 
was  raised  enough  corn  to  grind  into  meal. 

"  You  have  a  roof  to  cover  you,  a  bed  to  sleep  on  and 
plenty  to  eat,"  his  father  would  say  ;  "  what  more  can  a  boy 
want  ?  " 

A  boy  needs  and  wants  more  than  just  enough  to  keep 
himself  alive.  If  he  did  not,  he  would  be  no  better  off  than 
the  wild  beasts  of  the  woods.  Contentment,  we  are  told,  is 
better  than  wealth  ;  but  if  men  and  women,  if  boys  and  girls, 
were  perfectly  satisfied  with  just  what  they  had  and  did  not 
have  the  desire  to  better  themselves  there  would  be  no  such 
thing  as  progress  and  the  world  would  never  improve.  So 
let  us  be  thankful  that  this  poor  little  boy  of  the  Indiana 
backwoods  did  wish  for  better  things. 

That  he  did  so,  you  may  be  certain.  The  whole  story  of 
his  life  is  based  on  a  desire  for  improvement.  He  never 
was  one  to  complain.  But  the  things  his  mother  had  told 
him  gave  him  the  knowledge  that  there  were,  in  the  world, 
plenty  of  opportunities  for  wide-awake  boys  to  get  ahead. 
And,  even  as  a  little  fellow,  he  got  to  thinking,  as  so  many 
boys  do,  what  he  would  be  and  what  he  would  do  when  he 
was  a  man. 


A   BOY  OF  THE  BACKWOODS. 


35 


Even  as  a  boy  he  was  a  thoughtful  little  fellow.  He 
loved  to  go  out  into  the  great  woods  that  stretched  all  about 
his  home,  and  to  lie  on  his  back  and — just  think!  I 
imagine,  from  what  we  know  of  his  story,  that  he  liked  this 
sort  of  thing  better  than  splitting  wood  or  lugging  water  or 
feeding  the  animals  —  in  tact,  better 
than  work.  But  that  shows  us,  does 
it  not,  that  he  was  just  a  boy  ;  for 
no  boy  really  loves  to  work. 
]  His  life  was  lonely  enough  in  that 
wilderness  ;  but,  before  many  months, 
he  had  company.  His  Uncle  and 
Aunt  Sparrow  and  his  boy  cousin, 
Dennis  Hanks,  came  from  Kentucky 
to  try  their  luck  in  Indiana.  Abra- 
ham's father  gave  them  the  old  "  half- 
faced  camp"  as  a  home,  and  so  the 
Lincolns  had  near  neighbors. 

But  before  the  winter  set  in  there 
came  sad  days  to  both  houses.  A 
terrible  sickness  —  what  we  call  an 
epidemic  —  visited  that  section  of 
Indiana.  Many  people  died  from  it, 
and  among  these  were,  first.  Uncle  and  Aunt  Sparrow,  and 
then  Mrs.  Lincoln,  the  mother  of  Abraham. 

The  nearest  doctor  was  thirty-five  miles  away,  and  tney 
had  no  money  to  pay  him  or  spend  in  medicine,  even  if  he 


GOING  TO   BED. 


36  A   BOY  OF  THE  BACKWOODS. 

could  have  come  to  them.  The  dreadful  malaria  that  is  pres- 
ent in  all  swampy  lands  weakened  the  invalids ;  they  were 
ill-fed,  poorly  housed  and  without  any  of  the  comforts  that  sick 
people  need;  so  they  speedily  fell  victims  to  the  epidemic. 

It  was  a  terrible  blow  to  the  Lincoln  children.  Their 
father  was  not  fitted  to  care  for  them  or  be  tender  to  them ; 
and  they  had  grown  to  depend  upon  their  sad-faced,  hard- 
working mother  for  instruction,  help  and  companionship- 
She  could  not  give  them  much,  if  any,  of  these  things;  but 
what  little  she  could  do  for  them  she  did  cheerfully  and, 
when  she  was  taken  from  them,  they  were  poor  indeed. 

They  buried  her  in  the  forest.  No  clergyman  was 
within  call;  her  husband  himself  made  her  rough  cof^n;  and, 
many  a  time,  little  neglected  Abraham  would  sit  by  the 
mound  that  was  his  mother's  forest  grave  and  cry,  long  and 
bitterly,  wishing  her  back  again. 

The  life  of  the  mother  of  Abraham  Lincoln  had  been  a 
hard  and  dreary  one.  She  had  known  little  but  poverty, 
worry  and  work.  But  she  dearly  loved  her  forlorn  and 
ragged  little  nine-year-old  son,  and  it  was  to  him  that  she 
turned  as  she  was  dying  and  gave  her  last  message. 

"  Be  kind  to  father  and  sister,"  she  said,  placing  her  hand 
on  the  boy's  head;  "  be  good  to  each  other,  won't  you  ?  Lve 
tried  to  teach  you  to  do  so.  I  hope  you'll  live,  Abe,  to 
remember  your  mother,  love  your  folks  and  pray  to  God." 

To-day,  a  stone  monument  marks  the  grave  of  Nancy 
Lincoln,  on  a  little  knoll   half  a  mile  from  where  her  shabby 


A   BOY  OF  THE  BACKWOODS.  37 

log  hut  of  a  home  once  stood.  For  long  years,  her  grave 
was  unmarked,  but  the  memory  of  her  patient  life  and  her 
desire  for  her  children's  welfare  ever  lived  with  her  famous 
son,  even  when,  years  after,  he  spoke  of  the  story  of  his 
childhood  days  as  being  only  what  a  famous  poet  once 
described  as 

"The  short  and  simple  annals  of  the  poor." 

What  boy  or  girl  knows  from  what  noble  poem  this  line  is 
taken  ?     It  was  a  favorite  poem  with  Abraham  Lincoln. 

Little  Dennis  Hanks,  having  lost  his  protectors  also, 
came  into  the  Lincoln  family,  and  the  long  winter  that 
followed  Mrs.  Lincoln's  death  was  dreary  and  gloomy  and 
empty  enough  to  those  three  lonely  children. 

The  boy  Abraham  felt  especially  grieved  that  no  clergy- 
man had  held  a  service  or  preached  a  funeral  sermon  above 
his  mother's  grave.  He  thought  over  the  matter  a  long 
time  and,  one  day,  he  wrote  what  was,  I  believe,  really  his 
first  letter.  It  was  to  the  good  minister  whom  he  remem- 
bered in  the  old  Kentucky  home,  miles  away,  and  it  begged 
him  to  come  into  Indiana  and  hold  a  memorial  service  for 
Nancy  Lincoln. 

The  kindly  clergyman  wrote  to  the  boy  promising  to 
visit  the  Lincoln  home  when  he  next  made  a  journey  into 
Indiana;  and,  sure  enough,  when  the  next  summer  came, 
"  Parson  Elkins,"  as  he  was  called,  did  come  to  the  little 
settlement  and,  when  the  people  had  gathered  from  far  and 


38  A  BOY  CF  THE  BACKWOODS. 

near,  he  preached  the  funeral  sermon,  as  he  had  promised  the 
lonely  boy,  who  so  remembered  and  honored  the  mother  he 
had  lost. 

It  was,  I  imagine,  a  pretty  poor  kind  of  housekeeping 
they  had  in  that  shiftless  home  on  Little  Pigeon  Creek, 
after  the  mother  of  the  home  had  been  taken  away.  Sarah, 
the  eldest  child,  was  only  twelve  ;  Abraham  was  but  ten, 
and  little  Dennis  Hanks  was  eight. 

Sarah  tried  to  "  keep  house"  ;  and  her  father,  in  his  care- 
less way,  tried  to  help  her.  But  about  all  they  could  do  was 
to  keep  from  going  hungry.  Deer-meat  broiled  on  the  coals 
of  the  wood-fire,  ash-cakes  made  of  corn-meal,  with,  now  and 
then,  a  slab  of  pork  was  their  only  bill  of  fare.  About  all 
the  pleasure  that  little  Abraham  found,  when  he  was  not 
trying  to  keep  from  being  cold  and  hungry,  was  in  his 
books. 

How  many  do  you  think  he  had  ?  Just  three:  the  Bible, 
^j^op's  Fables  and  the  Pilgrim's  Progress.  Think  of  that, 
you  boys  and  girls  who  have  more  books  than  you  can  read, 
and  for  wdiom  the  printing  presses  are  always  hard  at  work. 

The  boy  knew  those  three  books  almost  by  heart.  He 
could  repeat  whole  chapters  of  the  Bible,  many  parts  of  the 
Pilgrim's  Progress  and  every  one  of  ^sop's  Fables ;  and  he 
never  forgot  them. 

Thomas  Lincoln  knew  that  the  uncomfortable  state  of 
affairs  in  his  log  cabin  could  not  long  continue,  or  his  home, 
such  as  it  was,  would  go  to  wrack  and  ruin.     So,  one  day, 


A   BOY  OF  THE   BACKWOODS. 


39 


he  bade  the  children  good-bye  and  told  them  he  was  going 
back  to  Kentucky  on  a  visit. 

How  under  the  sun  those  three  children  got  along,  all 
alone,  in  their  lonely  home  while  their  father  was  away,  I 
don't  know.  But  per- 
haps, it  was  quite  as 
easy  for  them  as  when 
he  was  about  the  house. 
He  was  away  for 
weeks;  but  when 
Thomas  Lincoln  re- 
turned from  his  Ken- 
tucky visit,  in  Decem- 
ber, 1819,  he  brought 
back  a  new  wife  to 
look  after  his  home 
and  be  a  mother  to  his 
motherless  children. 

It  was  one  of  the 
best  things  he  ever  did. 
The  second  Mrs.  Lin- 
coln was  an  excellent 
woman.  People  spoke 
of  her  as  a  "  poor  wid- 
ow"; but  she  was  really  rich,  in  the  eyes  of  the  three  neg- 
lected children,  whom  she  took  to  her  heart  as  soon  as  she 
saw  them  —  forlorn  and  ragged  and  dirty  though  they  were. 


"HE   BADE  THE  CHILDREN  GOOD-BYE." 


40  A   BOY  OF  THE   BACKWOODS. 

She  brought  with  her,  from  Kentucky,  the  things  most 
needed  to  brighten  up  that  shiftless  home — a  kind  heart, 
go-ahead  ways,  and  decent  furniture. 

This  last  included  a  bureau  and  a  table,  chairs  and 
"cooking  things,"  a  clothes-chest,  bedding,  knives  and  forks, 
and  other  things  that  you  could  not  do  without,  but  which, 
up  to  that  time,  the  Lincoln  children  had  never  known. 

She  had  three  children  of  her  own  —  a  boy  and  two  girls  ; 
but  she  never  made  any  difference  between  them  and  the 
three  motherless  children  into  whose  home  she  had  come. 
She  knew  just  how  to  keep  them  all  in  hand,  and  just  how 
to  go  to  work  to  make  that  home  a  united  and  happy  one  — 
humble  and  poor  though  it  was. 

If  you  have  ever  read  Dickens's  story  of  poor  little 
David  Copperfield,  you  will  remember  that,  when  that  small 
runaway  tramp  appeared  in  his  aunt's  home,  she  asked  funny 
Mr  Dick  what  she  should  do  with  the  boy,  and  Mr.  Dick 
promptly  suggested  "wash  him."  Mrs.  Lincoln  was  quite 
as  practical  as  Mr.  Dick,  for  the  first  thing  she  did  for  little 
Abraham  Lincoln  was  to  wash  him ! 

Then,  out  of  her  own  little  stock  of  clothing,  she  made 
for  the  boy  warm,  clean  clothes ;  she  took  his  part  when  his 
father  abused  or  scolded  him,  and,  in  fact,  made  life  so  much 
inore  pleasant  and  agreeable  for  Abraham  that,  from  that 
time  on,  the  boy,  so  we  are  told,  "appeared  to  lead  a  new 
life." 

She  had  a  good  influence,  too,  on  the  boy's  shiftless  do- 


A   BOY   OF  THE   BACKWOODS. 


41 


norhing  father.  She  made  him  fix  up  that  dreary  little 
house  at  once.  Urged  on  by  her,  he  laid  a  floor  in  the 
cabin,  where  only  hard  earth  had  been  before  ;  he  put  a  door 
and  window  in  the  house,  and  brought  about  something  like 
comfort  where,  before,  there  had  scarcely  been  even  secu- 
rity. In  fact,  as  lit- 
tle Dennis  Hanks 
said,  many  years 
after,  the  new 
mother  so  changed 
things  in  a  few 
weeks'  time,  that, 
"  where  everything 
was  wanting,  now 
all  was  snug  and 
comfortable." 

Mrs.  Lincoln 
seemed  to  take  an 
especial  liking  for 
the  little  ten-year 
old  Abraham.  She 
saw  something  in 
the  boy  that  made 
her  feel  sure  that 
a  little  trying  would  do  wonders  for  him. 

Having   first  made  him  clean  and  comfortable,  she  next 
made   him    intelligent,  bright   and   good.     She   managed   to 


'  SOMETHING    LIKE    COMFORT. 


42 


A   BOY  OF  THE  BACKWOODS. 


send  him  to  school  for  a  few  months.  The  little  log  school- 
house,  close  by  the  meeting  house,  to  which  the  traveling 
schoolmaster  would  come  to  give  four  weeks'  schooling  was 
scarcely  high  enough  for  a  man  to  stand  straight  in  ;  it  had 
holes  for  windows  and  greased  paper  to  take  the  place  of 
glass.  But,  in  such  a  place  Abraham  Lincoln  "got  his  school- 
ing," for  a  few  weeks  only,  in  "  reading,  writing  and  cipher- 
ing;" here  he  was,  again  and 
again,  head  of  his  class ;  and 
here  he  "  spelled  down  "  all  the 
big  boys  and  girls  in  the  excit- 
ing contests  called  "spelling 
matches." 

He  was  ten  years  old  now 
and  growing  "  like  a  weed." 
People  declared,  when  he  was 
twelve  years  old,  that  you  could  almost  see  him  grow.  He 
seemed  all  legs  and  arms.  He  grew  so  fast,  after  he  got  into 
his  teens,  that,  when  he  was  fifteen,  he  was  six  feet,  four 
inches  high. 

The  care  that  his  stepmother  gave  for  his  health  and 
mind  soon  began  to  show  for  itself.  He  was  long  ;  he  was 
strong  ;  he  was  wiry.  He  was  never  sick,  was  always  good- 
natured,  never  a  bully,  always  the  friend  of  the  weak,  the 
small  and  the  unprotected  —  and  the  girls. 

He  must  have  been  a  funny  looking  boy.  His  skin  was 
sallow  and  his  hair  was  black.      He  wore  a  linsey-woolsey 


THE  TRAVELING    SCHOOLMASTER. 


A   BOY  OF  THE   BACKWOODS.  45 

shirt,  buckskin  breeches,  a  coon-skin  cap  and  heavy  "clumps  " 
of  shoes.  He  grew  so  fast  that  his  breeches  never  came 
down  to  the  tops  of  his  shoes,  and,  instead  of  stockings,  you 
could  always  see  "  twelve  inches  of  shinbone,"  sharp,  blue 
and  narrow.  He  laughed  much,  was  always  ready  to  give  and 
take  jokes  and  hard  knocks,  had  a  squeaky,  changing  voice, 
a  small  head,  big  ears  —  and  was  always  what  Thackeray 
called  "a  gentle-man."    Such  was  Abraham  Lincoln  at  fifteen. 

He  was  never  cruel,  mean  or  unkind.  His  first  compo- 
sition was  on  cruelty  to  animals,  written  because  he  had 
tried  to  make  the  other  boys  stop  "  teasin'  tarrypins  "  — 
that  is,  catching  turtles  and  putting  hot  coals  on  their  backs 
just  to  make  them  move  along  lively. 

He  had  to  work  hard  at  home  ;  for  his  father  would  not, 
and  things  needed  to  be  attended  to  if  "  the  place  "  was  to  be 
kept  from  dropping  to  pieces. 

He  became  a  great  reader.  He  read  every  book  and 
newspaper  he  could  get  hold  of  and,  if  he  came  across  any- 
thing in  his  reading  that  he  wished  to  remember,  he  would 
copy  it  on  a  shingle,  because  writing  paper  was  scarce,  and 
either  learn  it  by  heart  or  hide  the  shingle  away  until  he 
could  get  some  paper  to  copy  it  on. 

His  father  thought  he  read  too  much. 

"  It'll  sp'ile  him  for  work,"  he  said.  "  He  don't  do  half 
enough  about  the  place,  as  it  is,  now,  and  books  and  papers 
ain't  no  good." 

But  Abraham,  with  all  his  reading,  did  more  work  than 


46  A    BOY  OF  THE   BACKWOODS. 

his  father  any  day  ;  his  stepmother,  too,  took  his  side  and  at 
last  got  her  husband  to  let  the  boy  read  and  study  at  home. 

"  Abe  was  a  good  son  to  me,"  she  said  many,  many  years 
after,  "  and  we  took  particular  care  when  he  was  reading  not 
to  disturb  him.  We  would  just  let  him  read  on  and  on  till 
he  quit  of  his  own  accord." 

The  boy  kept  a  sort  of  shingle  scrap-book  ;  he  kept  a  paper 
scrap-book,  too.  Into  these  he*^  would  put  ^^'hatever  he 
cared  to  keep — poetry,  history,  funny  sayings,  fine  passages. 

He  had  a  scrap-book  for  his  arithmetic  "  sums  "  too,  and 
one  of  these  is  still  in  existence  with  this  boyish  rhyme  in  a 
boyish  scrawl,  underneath  one  of  his  tables  of  weights  and 
measures  : 

Abraha7n  Lincoln 
his  hand  and  pen 
he  ziiill  he  good  hut 
god  knows  When. 

God  did  know  when ;  and  that  boy,  all  unconsciously,  was 
working  toward  the  day  when  his  hand  and  pen  were  to  do 
more  for  humanity  than  any  other  hand  or  pen  of  modern 
times. 

Lamps  and  candles  were  almost  unknown  in  his  home, 
and  Abraham,  flat  on  his  stomach,  would  often  do  his  read- 
ing, writing  and  ciphering  in  the  firelight,  as  it  flashed  and 
flickered  on  the  big  hearth  of  his  log-cabin  home.  An  older 
cousin,  John  Hanks, who  lived  for  a  while  with  the  Lincolns, 
says  that  when  "  Abe,''  as  he  always  called  the  great  president, 
would  come  home,  as  a  boy,  from  his  \vork,  he  would  go  to 


A  BOY  OF  THE  BACKWOOJJU. 


41 


the  cupboard,  take  a  piece  of  corn  bread  for  his  supper,  sit 
down  on  a  chair,  stretch  out  his  long  legs  until  they  were 
higher  than  his  head  —  and  read,  and  read,  and  read. 

"Abe  and  I,"  said  John  Hanks,  "worked  barefoot; 
grubbed  it,  ploughed  it,  mowed  and  cradled  it ;  ploughed  corn, 
gathered  corn. 


and  shucked  corn,   ^^    .y^i^'^%"^M0^'''--  -  ^ 


and  Abe  read  con- 
stantly, whenever 
he  could  get  a 
chance." 

One  day  Abra- 
ham found  that  a 
man  for  whom  he 
sometimes  worked 
owned  a  copy  of  ' 
Weems's  "  Life  of 
Was  hington." 
This  was  a  famous  ^, 
book  in  its  day. 
Abraham  borrowed  it  at  once.  When  he  was  not  reading 
it,  he  put  it  away  on  a  shelf — a  clapboard  resting  on  wooden 
pins.  There  was  a  big  crack  between  the  logs,  behind  the 
shelf,  and,  one  rainy  day,  the  "  Life  of  Washington  "  fell 
into  the  crack  and  was  soaked  almost  into  pulp.  Old  Mr. 
Crawford,  from  whom  Abraham  borrowed  the  book,  was  a 
cross,  cranky   and  sour  old  fellow,  and    when  the  boy  told 


"  HE  WAS   A   GREAT   READER." 


48  A   BOY   OF  THE   BACKWOODS. 

him  of  the  accident  he  said  Abraham  must  "work  the 
book  out." 

The  boy  agreed,  and  the  old  farmer  kept  him  so  strictly  to 
his  promise  that  he  made  him  "  pull  fodder"  for  the  cattle 
three  days,  as  payment  for  the  book!  And  that  is  the  way 
that  Abraham  Lincoln  bought  his  first  book.  For  he  dried 
the  copy  of  Weems's  "  Life  of  Washington  "  and  put  it  in 
his  "  library."  But  what  boy  or  girl  of  to-day  would  like  to 
buy  books  at  such  a  price? 

This  was  the  boy-life  of  Abrah  im  Lincoln.  It  was  a 
life  of  poverty,  privation,  hard  wor.c,  little  play  and  less 
money.  The  boy  did  not  love  work.  But  he  worked.  His 
father  was  rough  and  often  harsh  and  hard  to  him,  and  what 
Abraham  learned  was  by  making  the  most  of  his  spare  time. 

He  was  inquisitive,  active  and  hardy,  and,  in  his  comfort- 
less boyhood,  he  was  learning  lessons  of  self-denial,  inde- 
pendence, pluck,  shrewdness,  kindness  and  persistence. 

These  were  the  very  things  to  do  such  a  boy  good.  They 
developed  his  real  character  and  helped  to  build  him  up. 
They  were  the  very  things  that  made  him  the  ambitious,  large- 
hearted,  strong-souled,  loving  and  kindly  man  he  afterwards 
rounded  into,  and  they  fitted  him  to  "endure  all  things"  as 
he  rose  to  eminence  and  fame. 


HOW  ABRAHAM  SAIV   2 HE    IVORLD.  49 


CHAPTER    III. 

HOW    ABRAHAM    SAW    THE    WORLD. 

I  ."VERY  boy  is  a  dreamer.  He  is  continually  thinking 
-*— ^  about  what  he  would' like  to  do,  or  what  he  will  surely 
do  "  when  I'm  a  man  !  " 

The  more  there  is  tc  him,  the  more  is  it  possible  for  him 
to  make  his  dream  come  true. 

There  is  a  legend,,  still  accepted  around  Abraham  Lin- 
coln's boyhood  home,  that  the  young  fellow  always  declared 
that  "  some  day "  he  was  going  to  be  "  president  of  the 
United  States."  ; 

If  he  did  say  soj  it  may  have  been  just  his  "funning"; 
but  he  dreamed  ot  it,  nevertheless,  and  determined  to  be 
more  of  a  man  than  was  his  shiftless  father. 

Abraham  was  not  much  of  a  carpenter;  that  must  be 
confessed.  But  he  was  wise  enough  to  acknowledge  this 
and  to  declare  that  he  would  not  be  a  carpenter  when  he 
became  a  man.  He  used  to  work  in  his  father's  shop  — 
when  he  had  to.  In  fact,  there  is  still  in  existence,  in  an 
Indiana  home,  a  little  walnut  cabinet,  about  two  feet  high 
and  containing  two  rows  of  drawers,  that  was  made  by  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  and  his  father  in  their  "  shop." 


5° 


HOW  ABRAHAM  SAW  THE    WORLD. 


Just  because  he  did  not  mean  to  be  a  carpenter  he  kept 
away  from  the  shop  as  much  as  possible  and  "  hired  out "  to 
work  among  the  neighbors.  Until  he  was  twenty-one,  of 
course,  his  wages  belonged  to  his  father,  and  I  imagine 
Abraham,  himself,  never  had  much  to  show  for  his  work 
before  he  became  of  age. 

He  was  such  a  willing,  good-natured,  handy  young  fellow 
that  he  was  known  and  liked  in  every  cabin  and  every  farm- 
house between  "  the  forks  "  of  Big  Pigeon  and  Little  Pigeon 
Creeks.  He  could  build  a  lire,  carry  water,  chop  wood,  'tend 
the  baby  or  do  any  needed  "chores"  for  the  women;  he 
could  split  rails,  plough,  mow,  reap  or  sow  for  the  men.  He 
was  a  "  master  hand  "  with  the  axe.  From  the  time  he  was 
ten  years  old,  so  he  tells  us,  he  was  "  almost  constantly  hand- 
ling that  most  useful  instrument."  And  when  he  was  work- 
ing or  when  he  was  "loafing"  —  and  he  did  enjoy  this  —  he 
always  had  a  story  to  tell  about  what  he  had  seen  or  heard 
or  read, 

When  he  was  sixteen  years  old  he  ran  a  ferry-boat  across 
the  mouth  of  Anderson  Creek,  where  it  empties  into  the 
Ohio  river.  The  ferry  was  owned  by  a  man  named  Taylor, 
and  young  Lincoln,  when  he  was  not  paddling  the  boat, 
did  chore-work  about  the  farm.  His  wages  were  six  dollars 
a  month. 

He  earned  them.  During  the  nine  mtjnths  that  he 
worked  for  Mr.  Taylor,  he  was  hostler,  plough-boy,  ferr^'- 
man  and  farm-hand,  when  he  was  out  of   the  house ;  when 


HO  W  ABRAHAM  SA  W  THE    WORLD. 


he  was  in-doors,  he  did  everything,  from  running  the  hand- 
mill  that  ground  the  corn  into  meal  for  the  family,  to  "  fixing 
things "  about  the  kitchen  like  any  maid-of-all-work.  He 
slept  in  the  loft  with  the  Taylor  boy,  and  took  the  "bull- 
ing" of  his  employer's  son  good-naturedly.     Once,  however, 


"HE   WAS   'hired-man'   AND   '  CHORE-HOY.' 


he  confesses  he  did  "  get  mad  "  when  the  boy  beat  him  over 
the  head  with  an  ear  of  corn.  But  he  did  not  "  thrash  "  his 
tormenter,  as  he  could  easily  have  done,  because,  you  see,  the 
Taylor  boy  was  not  so  big  as  he. 

From  ferrying,  he  took  to  other  work  wherever  he  could 
"get  a  job."     He  earned  thirty-one  cents  a  day  killing  hogs 


52  HOW  ABRAHAM  SAW  THE    WORLD. 

"  in  hog-time,"  and  did  this  so  satisfactorily  that  the  farmersc, 
all  liked  to  have  him  "  help  butcher."  ^ 

He  hired  out  to  cross  old   Mr.  Crawford,  who  had  made-^-~^ 
him  pay  for  the  water-soaked  "  Life  of  Washington  ;  "  but 
he  enjoyed  working  there  because  he  got  a  chance  to  read 
all  Mr.  Crawford's  books  —  though  this  "all  "  was  not  much 
of  a  library.      He  learned    everything  he  could  from  these 


ON   THE   FARM. 


books,  however,  copying  the  parts  he  liked,  with  a  burnt  stick 
on  a  wooden  shovel.  But  he  never  could  like  cranky  Mr. 
Crawford  who  "  docked  him  "  whenever  he  "  missed  time," 
and  it  is  said  that  the  boy  revenged  himself  on  his  stingy 
employer  by  making  up  verses  about  Crawford's  big  nose, 
until  the  nose,  which  was  an  enormous  one,  and  the  verses, 
which  were  very  poor,  became  famous  all  the  country  round. 
It  wasn't  really  a  nice  thing  to  do,  but  it  was  just  like  a  mis- 
chievous boy. 

Abraham's  long  arms  were  as  strong  as  iron  and  his  long 
legs  were  as  steady  as  tree  trunks.  He  was  a  champion 
wrestler,  just  as  Washington  had  been,  and  he  could  "  throw  " 


HO  W  ABRAHAM  SA  TV  THE    WORLD.  53 

even  his  employer  in  a  friendly  "  rassle,"  every  time  he  tried. 
Though  a  hard  worker  he  was  a  slow  one  —  sometimes  to 

o 

Mrs.  Crawford's  disgust ;  for  she  was  heard  to  declare,  when 
at  last  Lincoln  had  grown  to  fame,  "Wal',  Abe  wasn't  no 
hand  to  pitch  into  his  work  like  killin'  snakes." 

The  boy  liked  to  hang  around  the  house  after  meal  time 
before  Sfoingf  out  to  work  with  "  old  Crawford."  But  he 
would  not  shirk  his  duty;  for,  after  he  had  joked  and  gos- 
siped with  the  girls  as  long  as  he  felt  that  he  dared,  he  would 
unwind  his  long  legs  from  the  chair-rungs,  jump  up  and  say, 
"Well,  this 


won't  buy  the 
child  a  coat, 
will  it?  "  and 
stride  out  to 
the  fields. 

"  Abe "  Lin-  ^\ -^,s^^^i^>iL^\im>.  \ ^^- 

coln  was,  like 
Washington, 
very   strong. 

He  could  carry  easily  a  load  that  three  men  would  stagger 
under.  He  once  picked  up  and  walked  away  with  a  chicken- 
coop  that  weighed  six  hundred  pounds;  and,  another  time, 
when  he  saw  four  men  making  a  litter  of  sticks  on  which  to 
carry  the  great  posts  that  were  to  support  a  new  corn-crib, 
Lincoln,  without  any  help,  shouldered  the  posts  and  took 
them  to  the  spot  where  they  were  to  be  used. 


'abe"  carrying  the  corn-crib  post. 


54  HOW  ABRAHAM  SAW  THE    WORLD. 

He  liked  fun,  and  he  made  it.  I  have  told  you  of  his 
"poetry"  about  Mr.  Crawford's  nose.  I  am  afraid  wherrc 
young  "  Abe  Lincoln  "  found  that  those  verses  "  took  "  so 
well,  that  he  indulged  in  the  same  sort  of  fun  toward  some 
other  people  he  knew.  He  was  always  ready  to  "  spout," 
as  the  boys  called  it ;  he  delighted  to  jump  on  a  stump,  in 
the  midst  of  the  hardest  work  in  the  field  or  the  clearing,  and 
set  the  boys  and  men  to  laughing  or  applauding  his  comic 
"  stump  speeches,"  until  the  exasperated  farmer  who  was 
"  bossing  the  job  "  would  haul  the  young  orator  down  with 
words  that  were  no  gentler  than  his  hands.  Mrs.  Crawford, 
indeed,  was  not  the  only  one  who  declared,  in  after  years, 
that  her  now  famous  "  chore-boy  "  did'nt  like  to  "pitch  in" 
when  he  worked.  We  have  the  record  of  still  another  em- 
ployer to  the  effect  that  "Abe  liked  his  dinner  and  his  pay 
better  than  his  work." 

But  you  know  the  old  rhyme  that  tells  us  that 

"  All  work  and  no  play 
Make  Jack  a  dull  boy." 

It  was  this  rough,  back  country  "  play,"  this  fun  and 
frolic  and  foolishness  interspersed  with  his  hard  work  that 
kept  Abraham  Lincoln  from  being  dull.  He  was  "just  a 
boy;  "  just  such  another  healthy,  growing  boy,  as  in  all  ages 
of  the  world,  has  always  preferred  fun  and  his  meals  to  hard 
work. 

But  Lincoln's  mind  was  working  all  throug^h  this  "  hob 


HO  W  ABRAHAM  SA  W  THE    WORLD. 


55 


bledehoy  "  period.  He  loved  to  read,  to  study  and  to  im- 
prove himself.  He  learned  slowly,  at  first ;  but  by  regular 
stages  of  growth,  he  taught  himself  gradually  to  think 
clearly,  to  reason  out  things  and  to  give  himself,  what  we 
call,  a  "  logical  mind."  It  is  not  the  brilliant  boys  and  the 
prize  scholars  who 
make  the  best  mark 
in  the  world  ;  it  is  the 
patient  and  persistent 
ones,  who  stick  to  a 
thing  until  they  under- 
stand and  master  it, 
and  learn,  by  practice, 
how  to  do  and  how  to 
say  things  with  the 
best  results.  Young 
Abraham  Lincoln  kept 


pegging   away, 


and 


'  HE   WAS  ALWAYS    READY    TO    '  sroUT.' 


he  never   forgot  what 

he     had     learned     by 

application    and    hard 

work.     He  educated  himself  to  remember;  as  a  result,  his 

memory,  when  he  grew  to  manhood,  was  remarkably  clear 

and  correct. 

He  was  so  fair,  so  honest,  so  true,  so  kindly  and  so  just  in 
his  relations  with  those  about  him  that  he  became  a  leader 
among  the  boys  and  young  men  of  his  neighborhood. 


56  JIOW  ABRAHAM  SAW  THE    WORLD. 

He  liked  company;  he  liked  to  "  sit  around  "  in  the  kitch- 
ens or  the  store  better  than  to  go  off  hunting  with  the  boys  or 
roam  by  himself  in  the  woods.  Even  this,  however,  was 
part  of  his  schooling.  For  this  social,  sky-larking,  gossipy, 
hail-fellow  side  of  young  Abraham  Lincoln's  nature  taught 
him  to  know  men  and  women. 

He  lived  a  hard  life  in  a  rough  country,  where  every  man 
and  woman,  every  boy  and  girl  were  workers,  with  but  few 
amusements  —  and  these  not  always  high-toned,  gentle  or  re- 
fined. But  young  Abraham  Lincoln  was  good,  lovable,  kind- 
hearted,  generous,  pleasant-spirited  and  conscientious  —  and 
all  that  makes  a  pretty  fair  boy  !  It  kept  him  from  yielding 
to  low  tastes  and  evil  thoughts  ;  by  elevating  him  in  mind 
it  so  led  him  to  improve  every  opportunity  that  he  soon 
became  just  enough  dissatisfied  with  his  surroundings  to 
make  up  his  mind  to  amount  to  something  more  than  a 
chore-boy,  a  day-laborer  or  a  "  hired-mani' 

The  boy  was  what  is  called  a  "shrewd  observer."  He 
studied  men  and  women  as  well  as  books.  His  ability  to 
adapt  himself  to  circumstances  as  it  is  called  —  that  is  to  say, 
to  make  the  best  of  everything,  gave  him  such  a  knowledge 
of  the  characters  of  men  and  women  that,  as  he  grew  to 
manhood,  he  knew  just  how  to  "take"  people,  as  we  say. 
He  could  "  size  up  "  men  as  well  as  boys,  and  could  see  the 
good  as  well  as  the  bad  that  was  in  them.  He  could  turn  this 
knowledge  to  good  account,  both  for  his  own  purposes  and  for 
those  of  his  community  —  and,  in  later  years,  of  the  nation 


HOW  ABRAHAM  SAW  THE    WORLD.  57 

This  ability  to  make  the  most  from  his  surroundings,  to 
take  part  in  whatever  fun  was  going  on,  to  do  his  share, 
whether  in  work  or  frolic,  made  "  Abe  Lincoln,"  as  every  one 
called  him,  popular  with  all  the  young  people  of  his  little 
neighborhood. 

He  was  a  leader  in  all  the  "  goings  on."  I  have  told  you 
of  his  great  strength,  his  skill  as  a  wrestler,  his  pleasure  in 
hearing  or  telling  stories,  his  readiness  to  "talk  over"  things 
and  his  love  of  mimicry,  verse-making  and  "  stump"  oratory. 
He  would  work  hard  when  he  had  to  ;  he  could  turn  his 
hand  to  almost  anything ;  but  he  could  always  be  depended 
upon  to  join  in  any  of  the  boyish  games  that  were  set  on 
foot  by  the  boys  of  the  village. 

Some  of  these  games  were  such  as  all  boys  and  girls  en- 
joy—  running,  jumping,  "  stumping,"  "  follow  your  leader" 
and  such  sports ;  others  had  such  odd  names  as  "  cat," 
"  throwing  the  mall,"  "  hopping  and  half-hammer,"  "  bull-pen," 
"old  sister  Feby,"  "four-corner  bull-pen"  —  home-made 
games,  the  most  of  them.  Perhaps  the  boys  and  girls  of  the 
the  West  can  explain  some  of  these  to  their  cousins  of  the 
East  and  South  —  can  you  ? 

In  such  of  these  games  as  called  for  skill  and  strength, 
for  agility,  quickness  of  hand  and  eye,  Abraham  Lincoln  was 
an  acknowledged  leader.  He  was  the  champion  athlete,  and 
few  could  "  down  "  him  in  a  tussle  or  distance  him  in  a  race. 

As  I  have  told  you,  he  was  a  great  reader.  What  he 
read,  he  remembered,  and  he  used  his  knowledge  for  the  bene- 


S8 


HO  W  ABRAHAM  SA  W  THE    WORLD. 


fit  or  amusement  of  his  comrades.  They  looked  upon  him  as 
an  "awfully  smart  chap,"  and  he  was  certain  to  be  asked  to 
all  the  gathering's  and  merry-makings  of  the  neighborhood ; 
there  his  ready  joke,  his  quick  wit,  his  lively  stories,  his  knowl- 
edge of  what  to  say  and  how  to  do  things  could  all  be  made  the 
most  of.     Few  corn-shuckings,  log-rollings,  shooting-matches, 


./y-V.v- 


"  HE   WAS  THE   CHAMPION    WRESTLER   AND    NOT    A    SAKE   FELLOW    TO   'TACKLE.'" 

house-raisings  or  country-weddings  were  held  without  "Abe 
Lincoln,"  and  the  boys  always  expected  some  report  of  the 
affair  in  "Abe's  poetry"  or  "chronicle." 

The  town  nearest  to  his  home  was  a  little  village  called 
Gentryville.  In  this  place  there  was,  of  course,  a  village 
store;  this,  the  grocery  and  the  blacksmith's  shop,  furnished 
the  favorite  "loafing-places  "  for  the  boys  of  the  neighborhood. 

"  Abe  "  was,  of  course,  one  of  these  boys,  and  there  were 


HOW  ABRAHAM  SAW  THE    WORLD.  6i 

the  usual  "  carryings-on  "  when  they  met  after  work.  These, 
in  almost  every  case,  included  "  stumping  "  one  another  to 
feats  of  boyish  strength  —  lifting,  jumping,  pushing  weights, 
wrestling,  etc.,  or  singing,  telling  stories  and,  I  am  afraid, 
some  "grog  drinking." 

Such  places  have  ruined  many  easily-tempted  or  weak- 
minded  boys ;  but  those  who,  like  young  Lincoln,  had 
strength  of  character  or  good  common-sense,  were  not  to  be 
spoiled  by  such  mixed  associations. 

To  the  credit  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  also,  be  it  said,  that, 
although  brought  up  in  "  drinking-days "  and  drinking 
neighborhoods,  where  the  well-filled  whiskey-jug  was  a  feature 
of  every  home,  he  rarely  touched  liquor  and  always  abhorred 
intemperance.  He  could  always  say  "  no,  I  thank  you ;  " 
and  this  habit  of  abstinence  continued  all  through  his 
eventful  life. 

The  store  in  Gentryville  was  "  kept  "  by  a  man  named 
Jones.  He  was  the  leading  "  merchant "  and  "  business 
man  "  of  the  village.  Young  Abe  Lincoln  did  "  odd  jobs  " 
for  him  so  satisfactorily  that,  at  last,  he  made  the  boy  a  sort 
of  assistant-clerk  in  his  store,  took  an  interest  in  the  young 
fellow,  talked  politics,  business  and  general  affairs  with  him, 
let  him  "  'tend  store  "  and  in  a  way,  as  we  say, "  brought  him 
out. 

This  taste  of  business  led  young  Abraham  Lincoln  to 
wish  to  strike  out  for  himself;  so,  when  another  leading  man 
of  the  neighborhood  —  the  Mr.  Gentry  for  whom  the  village 


62 


HO  W  ABRAHAM  SA  W  THE    WORLD. 


was  named  and  for  whom  Abe  had  done  considerable  work  at 
odd  time':  —  determined  to  load  a  flat-boat  and  send  it 
"  down  river  "  to  New  Orleans,  offered  Abe  a  place  as  '  bow 
hand,"  and  the  boy  at  once  accepted  the  opportunity. 

,  It  was  quite  an  event  in  his  life.  Abraham  Lincoln  was 
now  nineteen  years  old  ;  he  was  tall  and  awkward,  but  he  was 
wiry,  strong  and  reliable.  He  was,  so  Mr.  Gentry  thought, 
just  the  fellow  to  work  the  "  front  oar  "  on  his  flat-boat. 

The  flat-boat  of 
seventy  years  ago 
was  an  ungainly- 
looking  craft.  It 
was  long,  wide  and 
heavy,  flat-bottomed 
and  clumsy  ;  it  was 
simply  a  great  scow ; 
but  it  was  strongly 
built ;  it  would  carry 
much  freight,  and 
could  slide  over  the  snags  and  shallows,  where  a  keel-boat 
never  could  go.  It  would  float  with  the  current,  steered  or 
guided  by  long  oars  at  either  end.  It  could  not  be  worked 
against  the  stream,  however;  so  the  crew  generally  came 
back  from  their  journey's  end  by  steamboat,  leaving  the  use- 
less flat-boat  to  be  sold  for  some  other  use  or  split  into 
kindling  wood  at  the  port  to  which  it  had  floated. 

Mr.  Gentry  loaded  his  clumsy  craft  with  a  cargo  of  bacon 


LINCOLN    "'tending    STORE.' 


HOW  ABRAHAM  SAW  THE    WORLD. 


63 


A   FLAT-BOAT   CRUISE. 


and  other  Indiana  produce.     Abraham's  wages  were  to  be 
eight  dollars  a  month,  and  he  was  to  live  on  the  boat. 

It  was  a  long,  slow  voyage 
down  Pigeon  Creek  to  the  Ohio, 
then  down  to  the  Mississippi, 
and  then,  down  the  great  river 
one  thousand  miles  to  the  sea. 
But  the  boy  enjoyed  it  all  and 
used  his  eyes  and  ears  to  excel- 
lent advantage. 

He  saw  the  varied  life  of  the 
river,  the  farms,  the  river  towns, 
the  broad  plantations  and  the 
old  French  city  at  its  mouth,  over  which  had  floated,  in 
turn,  the  flags  of  France,  of  Spain  and  of  the  United  States, 
and  where,  when  Abraham  Lincoln  was 
five  years  old.  General  Andrew  Jack- 
son had  fought  the  British  behind  his 
rampart  of  cotton  bales. 

The  trip  was  without  special  adven- 
ture to  the  boys  who  made  up  the  crew 
of  "Gentry's  flat-boat,"  until  one  night 
when  the  craft  lay  just  below  the  town 
of  Baton  Rouge.  It  was  tied  to  the 
river  bank,  along  which  stretched  the 
plantation  of  a  wealthy  creole  woman  named  Madame 
Duchesne. 


THE   HERO   OF  THE  COTTON 
BALES. 


64 


HO  W  ABRAHAM  SA  W  THE    WORLD. 


flat-boat  and 

It  was  the 
But  it  was  dai" 
not  care  to  risk 


The  two  boys  were  asleep  in  the  little  shelter  that  served 
as  a  cabin,  in  the  stern  of  the  boat.  Suddenly,  they  heard  a 
noise  on  the  boat  and  found  that  they  were  set  upon  by 
negro  river  thieves. 

The  over-confident  darkies  did  not  know  the  strength  of 
arm  of  the  young  giant  they  had  roused.     Lincoln  seized  a 

club,  though  his  comrade  told  him  to 
take  a  gun ;  then,  falling  upon  the 
marauders,    he    drove    them    off    the 

''■''m  far  ashore. 

f  two  to  seven, 
.e  conquerors  did 
.ther  fight.  Hurry- 
'r  bo'^'',  the  boys  cut 
her  adrift  and  floated  down  the  river, 
wounded  but  vict  -ious.  And  the  tall, 
lank,  long-limbed  rkwoods  boy  car- 
ried, all  his  life,  a  .-n  his  forehead 
to  tell  of  his  first  p  cned  battle  —  and 
it  was  with  men  of  the  very  race 
whom  he  afterwards  made  forever  free. 
He  was,  in  truth,  a  long  and  lank 
young  fellow.  Before  he  was  eighteen  he  "  got  his  growth," 
as  the  saying  is.  He  was  very  tall  —  six  feet  and  four  inches. 
He  was  very  thin  ;  indeed,  one  of  the  Gentryville  girls  who 
used  to  make  fun  of  his  looks,  as  girls  will,  says  he  was  "  a 
long,  thin,  leggy,  gawky  boy,  dried  up  and  shrivelled." 


ing  back   to   tl 


"THEY     CUT     HFR     ADRIFT     AND 
FLOATED   DOWN    THE   RlVtK. " 


NOW  ABRAHAM  SAW  THE    WORLD.  65 

Perhaps  that  was  because  she  found  that  "  Abe,"  as  she 
called  him,  was,  "  giving  himself  airs  "  on  his  learning ;  for, 
sitting  on  that  very  flat-boat  at  Gentry's  Landing  one  even- 
ing-, "  Abe  "  had  told  her  that  the  earth  turned  around  and 
that  the  sun  and  moon  did  not  really  sink,  as  they  seemed  to. 
The  girl,  of  course,  thought  that  she  knew  better  and  told  the 
boy  so ;  but,  years  after,  she  said,  "  I  know  now  that  I  was 
the  fool,  and  not  Abe  Lincoln." 

The  flat-boat  voyage  to  New  Orleans  was  a  successful 
one.  The  two  boys  sole'  'all  their  cargo,  disposed  of  the  boat, 
and  came  back  up  the  ver  by  steamer — successful  traders 
and  travelers.  Abrah'  a  had  seen  the  world  ;  he  had  gone  a 
step  further  from  the'  d  rut  of  "  farm-hand,"  out  of  which  he 
determined  to  get  en'   -ely,  when  he  became  a  man. 

He  was  almost  u  man  by  this  time.  Tall,  wiry  and 
strong,  a  champion  t  ^-estler  and  not  a  safe  fellow  for  any  boy 
or  man  to" tackle, 'j  e  was  a  prominent  figure  in  the  little 
world  about  Gentrj'-.  ille.  He  had  read  and  studied  so  much 
that  he  knew  morc'than  all  the  boys  and  girls  of  Gentryville 
put  together.  He  was  a  ready  talker,  a  great  story-teller,  the 
life  o.f  every  circle,  whether  at  the  country  store,  the  black- 
smith's shop,  the  house-raising  or  the  husking-bee.  The  bul- 
lies were  all  afraid  of  his  long  arms  and  terrible  fists;  the 
girls  all  liked  him  ;  the  men  preferred  him  to  all  other  "hired, 
men  "  on  the  farm  work,  and  the  women  found  him  ever 
handy,  willing  and  helpful. 

He  was  not  a  genius.     He  was  slow,  but  sure.     Whenever 


66 


HO  W  ABRAHAM  SA  W  THE    WORLD. 


he  set  about  learning  anything  he  kept  at  it  until  he  knew  it 
completely.  Some  of  his  early  writing  actually  found  its 
way  into  print,  and  one  "piece,"  on  national  politics,  was  de- 
clared, by  a  lawyer  to  whom  it  was  shown,  to  be  so  good  that 
he  carried  it  off  and  had  it  published  in  the  papers.  "The 
world  can't  beat  it  1 "  the  lawyer  declared,  and  Lincoln  was, 
of  course,  very  proud  of  this  criticism,  and  still  more  proud 
of  thus  "getting  into  print."  Knowing  what  you  do  of  the 
future  of  this  long-legged,  awkward,  gawky  but  "  thorough  " 

country  boy,  you 
^iT":  ^  will  say  that  the 

^^-v'^f      "piece"   was    a 
■-^.     good     introduc- 
^p^^' g*y    tion  to  the  prin- 


1  ;-''- ''  ,^,ww/--ii' - 


EVER   WILLING,    HANDY   AND    HELPFUL. 


ciples  that,  in  af- 
ter years,  made 
Abraham  Lin- 
coln famous. 
For  this  "piece," 
1.  as  everybody 

then  called  any  written  composition,  maintained  that  "the 
American  Government  was  the  best  form  of  government 
for  an  intelligent  people;  that  it  ought  to  be  kept  sound, 
and  preserved  forever  ;  that  general  education  should  be  fos- 
tered and  carried  all  over  the  country;  that  the  constitution 
should  be  saved,  theL^nion  perpetuated  and  the  laws  revered, 
respected  and  enforced." 


BOU''  THE  RAIL-SPLITTER  RAISED   HIMSELF.  67 

Not  a  bad  beginning,  was  it,  for  a  boy  brought  up  with- 
out education,  without  advantages,  without  opportunity,  with 
nothing  but  a  clear  mind,  a  cool  head,  a  thoughtful  nature, 
unbounded  pluck,  and  a  determination  to  get  ahead? 

Yet  that  is  the  best  sort  of  foundation  to  build  upon. 
Any  boy,  so  furnished,  can  achieve  great  results  even  from 
small  beginnings.  It  was  this  building-up  of  himself  that 
made  Abraham  Lincoln  a  fresh  creation  —  original,  self-made, 
ambitious,  reliable,  a  real  leader,  a  true  and  noble  man,  the 
American. 


CHAPTER    IV. 


HOW    THE    RAIL-SPLITTER    RAISED    HIMSELF. 

"D  OYS  and  girls  always  like  change.  To  them,  it  means 
-"-^  new  places  to  explore,  new  sights  to  see,  new  things 
to  do.  As  they  grow  older,  it  means,  so  they  think,  a  better 
chance  to  get  on  in  the  world. 

When,  therefore,  restless  Thomas  Lincoln,  the  father  of 
Abraham,  decided  to  change  his  home  once  more  and  try  his 
luck  in  the  neighboring  state  of  Illinois,  young  Abraham 
was  quite  ready  to  make  the  change.  Boy-like,,  he  thought, 
no  doubt,  that  there  would  be  a  better  opening  for  a  young 
man  in  the  new  surroundings. 


68 


BOIV   THE   RAJL-SFLITTER   RAISED   HIMSELF. 


His  good  step-mother  was  quite  ready  to  move.  The 
same  epidemic,  or  sickness,  that  had  killed  Abraham's  own 
mother  visited  that  Indiana  neighborhood  again  ;    indeed,  it 

was  there  a  great  part 
of  the  time,  and  — 
"  Wal',  folks  say  as 
how  it's  right  healthy 
over  in  Illinoy,"  so 
Abraham's  father  de- 
clared. 

In  the  Spring  of 
1830,  therefore,  there 
was  another  "  mov- 
ing time "  for  the 
Lincolns.  The  corn 
and  the  cattle,  the 
farm  and  its  hogs 
were  all  sold  at  pub- 
lic "  vandoo,"  or  auc- 
tion, at  low  figures; 
and  with  all  their 
household  goods 
on  a  big  "  ironed  " 
wagon  drawn  by  four 
oxen,  the  three  related  families  of  Hanks,  Hall  and  Lincoln, 
thirteen  in  all,  pushed  on  through  the  mud  and  across  rivers, 
high  from  the  spring  freshets,  out  of  Indiana,  into  Illinois. 


JIOW  THE  RAIL-SFLITTER  RAISED  HIMSELF.  6g 

Abraham  held  the  "gad"  and  guided  the  oxen.  He 
carried  with  him,  also,  a  little  stock  of  pins,  needles,  thread  and 
buttons.  These  he  peddled  along  the  way;  and,  at  last,  after 
fifteen  days  of  slow  travel,  the  emigrants  came  to  the  spot 
picked  out  for  a  home. 

This  time  it  was  on  a  small  bluff  on  the  north  fork  of  the 
Sangamon  river,  ten  miles  west  of  the  town  of  Decatur. 
The  usual  log  house  was  built ;  the  boys,  with  the  oxen, 
"  broke  up,"  or  cleared,  fifteen  acres  of  land,  and  split  enough 
rails  to  fence  it  in.  Abraham  could  swing  his  broad-axe 
better  than  any  man  or  boy  in  the  West ;  at  one  stroke  he 
could  bury  the  axe-blade  to  the  haft,  in  a  log,  and  he  was 
already  famous  as  an  expert  rail-splitter. 

By  the  time  his  people  Avere  settled  in  their  new  home, 
Abraham  Lincoln  was  twenty-one.  He  was  "of  age"  —  he 
was  a  man  !  By  the  law  of  the  land  he  was  freed  from  his 
father's  control;  he  could  shift  for  himself,  and  he  deter- 
mined to  do  so. 

This  did  not  mean  that  he  disliked  his  father.  It  simply 
means  that  he  had  no  intention  of  following  his  father's  ex- 
ample. Thomas  Lincoln  had  demanded  all  the  work  and  all 
the  wages  his  son  could  do  or  earn,  and  Abraham  felt  that 
he  could  not  have  a  fair  chance  to  accomplish  anything  or 
get  ahead  in  the  world  if  he  continued  living  with  this  shift- 
less, never-satisfied,  do-nothing  man. 

So  he  struck  out  for  himself.  But,  lest  you  should  imag- 
ine that  he  "  went  back  on  "  his  family,  as  you  boys  say,  or 


70 


HO  IV  THE  RAIL-SPLITTER   RAISED  HIMSELF, 


forgot  his  duty  to  them,  especially  to  the  good  woman 
who  was  his  step-mother,  let  me  say  that,  to  the  day  of  his 
death,  he  was  always  helping  them  —  and  he  was  never  a 
rich  man,  never  even  what  folks  call  "  well-to-do." 

In  the  summer  of  1S30,  Abraham  left  home  and  hired  out 
on  his  own  account,  wherever  he  could  get  a  job  in  the  new 
country  into  which  he  had  come.     In  that  region  of  big  farms 


'ABRAHAM   WAS   ALREADY   FAMOUS   AS   AN    EXPERT    KAIL-SPLITTER, 


and  no  fences,  these  latter  were  needed,  and  Abraham  Lin- 
coln's stalwart  arm  and  well-swung  axe  came  well  into  play, 
cutting  up  logs  for  fences.  He  was  what  was  called  in  that 
western  country  a  "rail-splitter."  Indeed,  one  of  the  first 
things  he  did  when  he  struck  out  for  himself  was  to  split 
four  hundred  rails  for  every  yard  of  "  blue  jeans  "  necessary 
to  make  him  a  pair  of  trousers.  From  which  it  will  be 
seen  that  work  was  easier  to  get  than  clothes. 


HOW  THE   RAIL-SPLITTER    RAISED    HIMSELF.  71 

He  soon  became  as  much  of  a  favorite  in  Illinois  as  he 
had  been  in  Indiana.  Other  work  came  to  him,  and,  in  1831, 
he  "  hired  out "  with  a  man  named  Offutt  to  help  sail  a  flat- 
boat  down  the  Mississippi  to  New  Orleans. 

Mr.  Offutt  had  heard  that  "Abe  Lincoln  "  was  a  good 
river-hand,  strong,  steady,  honest,  reliable,  accustomed  to 
boating  and  that  he  had  already  made  one  trip  down  the 
river. 

So  he  engaged  young  Lincoln  at  what  seemed  to  the 
young  rail-splitter  princely  wages  —  fifty  cents  a  day,  and  a 
third  share  in  the  sixty  dollars  which  was  to  be  divided 
among  the  three  boatmen  at  the  end  of  the  trip. 

They  built  the  flat-boat  at  a  saw  mill  near  a  place  called 
Sangamon-town,  "  Abe  "  serving  as  cook  of  the  camp  while 
the  boat  was  being  built. 

Then,  loading  the  craft  with  barrel-pork,  hogs  and  corn, 
they  started  on  their  voyage  south.  At  a  place  called 
New  Salem  the  flat-boat  ran  aground;  but  Lincoln's  inge- 
nuity got  it  off.  He  rigged  up  a  queer  contrivance  of  his 
own  invention  and  lifted  the  boat  off  and  over  the  obstruc- 
tion, while  all  New  Salem  stood  on  the  bank,  first  to  criticise 
and  then  to  applaud. 

Just  what  this  invention  was  I  cannot  explain.  But  if 
you  ever  go  into  the  patent  office  at  Washington,  ask  to  see 
Abraham  Lincoln's  patent  for  transporting  river  boats  over 
snags  and  shoals.  The  wooden  model  is  there ;  for,  so 
pleased  was   Lincoln  with  his  success  that  he  thought  seri- 


72 


no  IF  THE   RAIL-SPLITTER   RAISED   HIMSELF. 


ously  of  becoming  an  inventor,  and  his  first  design  was  the 
patent  granted  to  him  in  1S49,  ^he  idea  for  which  grew  out 
of  this  successful  floating  of  Offutt's  flat-boat  over  the  river 
snags  at  New  Salem  nineteen  years  before. 

Once  again  he  visited  New  Orleans,  returning  home,  as 
before,  by  steamboat.  That  voyage  is  remarkable,  because 
it  first  opened  young  Lincoln's  eyes  to  the  enormity  of  Afri- 
can  slavery.     Of  course,  he  had  seen  slaves  before;  but  the 


FLOATING    DOWN   TO   NKW   ORLEANS. 


sight  of  a  slave  sale  in  the  old  market  place  of  New  Orleans 
seems  to  have  aroused  his  anger  and  given  him  an  intense 
hatred  of  slave-holding.  He,  himself,  declared,  years  after, 
that  it  was  that  visit  to  New  Orleans,  that  had  set  him  so 
strongly  against  slavery. 

There  is  a  story  told  by  one  of  his  companions  that  Lin- 
coln looked  for  awhile  upon  the  dreadful  scenes  of  the  slave 
market  and  then,  turning  away,  said  excitedly,  "Come  away, 
boys  !      If  ever  I  get  a  chance,  some  day,  to  hit  that  thing" 


HO  IV  THE  HAIL-SPLITTER   RAISED   HIMSELF.  75 

—  and  he   flung  his  long  arm  toward  the  dreadful  auction 
block  —  "  I'll  hit  it  hard!" 

Now  this  may  have  been,  as  some  folks  say  it  is,  a 
"  made-up  story ;  "  but  we  know,  from  Lincoln's  own  words, 
that  his  intense  hatred  of  slavery  dated  from  that  New 
Orleans  trip.  If  he  did  speak  those  words,  he  spoke  as  a 
prophet;  for  he  did  get  the  chance;  he  did  "hit"  slavery; 
he  hit  it  so  "  hard  "  that  it  fell,  never  to  rise  again  ;  and, 
to-day,  north  and  south,  east  and  west,  all  true  Americans 
thank  God  for  Abraham  Lincoln  and  the  death  grapple  he 
gave  to  human  slavery. 

But  that,  you  see,  was  just  the  way  with  this  brawny 
rail-splitter,  this  backwoods  boy,  this  man  of  the  people. 
When  he  set  out  to  do  a  thing,  he  did  it.  It  was  this  very 
determination,  this  powerful  "grip"  with  which  he  took 
hold  of  things,  this  impatience  with  what  seemed  to  him 
wrong,  or  brutal  or  unfair,  that  helped  Abraham  Lincoln  to 
master  things,  and  made  him  the  righter  of  wrongs,  the  sav- 
ior of  the  union.  He  always  did  hate  unfairness  in  boys,  in 
men,  in  manners  and  in  action. 

Soon  after  he  returned  from  his  flat-boat  trip  to  New  Or- 
leans he  had  an  opportunity  to  show  that  he  could  not  and 
would  not  stand  what  is  termed  "  foul  play." 

The  same  Mr.  Ofl'utt  who  had  hired  Lincoln  to  be  one  of 
his  flat-boat  "boys,"  gave  him  another  opportunity  for  work. 

Offutt  was  what  is  called  in  the  West  a  "hustler;"  he 
had  lots  of  "  great  ideas"  and  plans  for  making  money;  and. 


76 


HO  IV  THE   RAIL-SPLITTER   RAISED   HIMSELE. 


among  his  numerous  enterprises,  was  one  to  open  a  country 
store  and  mill  at  New  Salem  —  the  very  same  village  on  the 
Sangamon  where,  by  his  "patent  invention,"  Lincoln  had 
lifted  the  flat-boat  off  the  snags. 

Mr.    Offutt    had   taken  a  great    fancy    to    Lincoln,    and 
offered  him  a  place  as  clerk  in  the  New  Salem  store. 


tv 


IN    OFFUTT'S    store "he'll    be    PREalDENT    SOME    DAY,    HE    WILL!' 


The  young  fellow  jumped  at  the  chance.  It  seemed  to 
him  quite  an  improvement  on  being  a  farm-hand,  a  flat-boat- 
man, or  a  rail-splitter.  It  was,  indeed,  a  step  upward;  for 
it  gave  him  better  opportunities  for  self-instruction  and  more 


chances  for  getting  ahead. 


HO  IV  THE  RAIL-SPLITTER   RAISED   HIMSELF.  11 

I  suspect  that  Offutt  was  what  you  boys  call  "  a  great 
blower."  He  liked  to  hear  himself  talk,  and  he  liked  to  talk 
"  big."  One  of  his  favorite  themes  was  Abraham  Lincoln. 
That  young  fellow's  length  of  arm  and  limb,  his  strength,  his 
handiness,  his  learning  and  his  oratorical  powers  were  all 
made  the  most  of  by  his  friend  and  employer  the  "hustling 
Hoosier,"  who  boasted  loudly  and  constantly  that  "  my  clerk, 
Abe  Lincoln  "  "could  beat  the  universe." 

"Why,"  he  declared,  "that  boy  of  mine  knows  more  'n 
any  man  in  these  U-nited  States.  He'll  be  president,  some 
day,  he  will.  Yes,  ma'am,  you  mark  my  words :  that  boy '11 
be  president  of  the  U-nited  States,  some  day." 

Offutt's  store  was  a  favorite  "  loafing  place  "  for  the  New 
Salem  boys  and  young  men.  Among  these,  were  some  of 
the  roughest  fellows  in  the  settlement.  They  were  known 
as  the  "  Clary  Grove  Boys  "  and  they  were  always  ready  for 
a  fight,  in  which  they  would,  sometimes,  prove  themselves  to 
be  bullies  and  tormentors. 

When,  therefore,  Offutt  began  to  brag  about  his  new 
clerk  the  "  Clary  Grove  Boys  "  made  fun  of  him;  whereupon 
the  store  keeper  cried:  "What's  that?  You  can  throw 
him?  Well,  I  reckon  not;  Abe  Lincoln  can  out-run,  out- 
walk, out-rassle,  knock  out  and  throw  down  any  man  in 
Sangamon  county." 

This  was  too  much  for  the  Clary  Grove  Boys.  They 
took  up  Offutt's  challenge,  and,  against  "  Abe,"  set  up,  as  their 
champion  and  "  best  man,"  one  Jack  Armstrong. 


7  8 


HOW  THE   RAIL-SFLITTER   RAISED   HIMSELF. 


All  this  Avas  done  without  Lincoln's  knowledge.  He 
had  no  desire  to  get  into  a  row  with  anyone — least  of  all 
with  the  bullies  who  made  up  the  "  Clary  Grove  Boys." 

"  I  won't  do  it,"  he  said,  when  Offutt  told  him  of  the  pro- 


"the  'clary  grove  boys'  were  always  ready  for  a  fight." 

posed  wrestling  match.  "  I  never  tussle  and  scuffle,  and  I 
will  not.     I  don't  like  this  woolling  and  pulling." 

"  Don't  let  them  call  you  a  coward,  Abe,"  said  Offutt. 

Of  course,  you  know  what  the  end  would  be  to  such  an 
affair.     Nobody    likes    to    be    called    a    coward  —  especially 


HOW  THE  RAIL-SPLITTER   RAISED  HIMSELF.  79 

when  he  knows  he  isn't  one.  So,  at  last,  Lincoln  consented 
to  "  rassle  "  with  Jack  Armstrong. 

They  met,  with  all  the  boys  as  spectators.  They  wres- 
tled, and  tugged  and  clenched,  but  without  result.  Both 
young  fellows  were  equally  matched  in  strength. 

"  It's  no  use,  Jack,"  Lincoln  at  last  declared.  "  Let's 
quit.  You  can't  throw  me  and  I  can't  throw  you.  That's 
enough." 

With  that,  all  Jack's  backers  began  to  cry  "  coward  !  " 
and  urged  on  the  champion  to  another  tussle. 

Jack  Armstrong  was  now  determined  to  win,  by  fair  means 
or  foul.  He  tried  the  latter,  and,  contrary  to  all  the  rules  of 
wrestling  began  to  kick  and  trip,  while  his  supporters  stood 
ready  to  help,  if  need  be,  by  breaking  in  with  a  regular  free 
fight. 

This  "  foul  play  "  roused  the  lion  in  Lincoln.  He  hated 
unfairness,  and,  at  once,  resented  it.  He  suddenly  put  forth 
his  Samson-like  strength,  grabbed  the  champion  of  the 
Clary  Grove  Boys  by  the  throat,  and,  lifting  him  from  the 
ground,  held  him  at  arm's  length  and  shook,  him  as  a  dog 
shakes  a  rat. 

Then  he  flung  him  to  the  ground,  and,  facing  the  amazed 
and  yelling  crowd,  he  cried  : 

"  You  cowards  !  You  know  I  don't  want  to  fight ;  but 
if  you  try  any  such  games,  I'll  tackle  the  whole  lot  of  you. 
I've  won  the  fight." 

He  had.      From    that  day,   no  man    in  all   that   region 


8o  BOW  THE   RAJL-SFLITTER    RAISED   HIMSELF. 

dared  to  "tackle"  young  Lincoln,  or  to  taunt  him  \\'ith 
cowardice.  And  Jack  Armstrong  was  his  devoted  friend 
and  admirer. 

I  have  told  you  more,  perhaps,  of  the  famous  fight  than 
I  ought  —  not  because  it  was  a  fight,  but  because  it  gives 
you  a  glimpse  of  Abraham  Lincoln's  character.  He  disliked 
rows ;  he  was  too  kind-hearted  and  good-natured  to  wish  to 
quarrel  with  any  one ;  but  he  hated  unfairness  and  was 
enraged  at  anything  like  persecution  or  bullying.  If  you 
will  look  up  Shakspere's  play  of  "  Hamlet  "  you  will  see  that 
Lincoln  was  ready  to  act  upon  the  advice  that  old  Polonius 
gave  to  his  son  Laertes  : 

"  Beware 
Of  entrance  to  a  quarrel  ;  but,  being  in, 
Bear  it  that  the  opposed  may  beware  of  thee." 

That  was  Abraham  Lincoln's  way.  And,  in  the  supreme 
moments  of  his  life,  he  lived  up  to  that  advice,  and  con- 
quered—  whether  in  "downing"  the  bullies  of  the  Clary 
Grove  Boys,  or  in  defending  the  nation  from  those  who 
sought  its  life. 

He  became  quite  a  man  in  that  little  community.  As  a 
clerk  he  was  obliging  and  strictly  honest.  He  was  the 
judge  and  the  settler  of  all  disputes,  and  none  thought  of 
combating  his  decisions.  He  was  the  village  peace-maker. 
He  hated  profanity,  drunkenness  and  unkindness  to  women. 
He  was  feared  and  respected  by  all,  and  even  the  Clary 
Grove  Boys  declared,  at  last,  that  he  was  "  the  cleverest  fel- 
ler that  ever  broke  into  the  settlement." 


HO  IV  THE  RAIL-SPLITTER   RAISED   HIMSELF.  8i 

All  the  time,  too,  he  was  trying  to  improve  himself.  He 
liked  to  sit  around  and  talk  and  tell  stories,  just  the  same 
as  ever ;  but  he  saw  this  was  not  the  way  to  get  on  in  the 
world.  He  worked,  whenever  he  had  the  chance,  outside 
of  his  store  duties ;  and  once,  when  trade  was  dull  and  hands 
were  short  in  the  clearing,  he  "  turned  to  "  and  split  enough 
logs  into  rails  to  make  a  pen  for  a  thousand  hogs. 

When  he  was  not  at  work  he  devoted  himself  to  his 
books.  He  could  "  read,  write  and  cipher  "  —  this  was  more 
education  than  most  men  about  him  possessed  ;  but  he  hoped, 
some  day,  to  go  before  the  public ;  to  do  this,  he  knew  he 
must  speak  and  write  correctly.  He  talked  to  the  village 
schoolmaster,  who  advised  him  to  study  English  grammar. 

"  Well,  if  I  had  a  grammar,"  said  Lincoln,  "  I'd  begin 
now.     Have  you  got  one  ?  " 

The  schoolmaster  had  no  grammar;  but  he  told  "Abe  "  ot 
a  man,  six  miles  off,  who  owned  one. 

Thereupon,  Lincoln  started  upon  the  run  to  borrow  that 
grammar.  He  brou.ght  it  back  so  quickly  that  the  school 
master  was  astonished. 

Then  he  set  to  work  to  learn  the  "  rules  and  exceptions." 
He  studied  that  grammar,  stretched  full  length  on  the 
store-counter,  or  under  a  tree  outside  the  store,  or  at  night 
before  a  blazing  fire  of  shavings  in  the  cooper's  shop.  And 
soon,  he  had  mastered  it. 

He  borrowed  every  book  in  New  Salem;  he  made  the 
schoolmaster  give  him  lessons  in  the  store  ;  he  button-holed 


S2 


HOW   THE   RAIL-SPLITTER   RAISED    HIMSELF. 


every  stranger  that  came  into  the  place  "  who  looked  as 
though  he  knew  anything ; "  until,  at  last,  every  one  in  New 
Salem  was  ready  to  echo  Offutt's  boast  that  "  Abe  Lincoln  " 
knew  more  than  any  man  "  in  these  U-nited  States." 

One  day,    in  the  bottom  of  an   old   barrel  of   trash,    he 
made  a  splendid  "  find."     It  was  two  old  law  books. 


"HE  BORROWED  EVERY  BOOK  IN  NEW  SALEM.'' 


He  read  and  re-read  them,  got  all  the  "  juice  "  and  sense 
and  argument  out  of  their  dry  pages,  blossomed  into  a  de- 
bater, began  to  dream  of  being  a  lawyer,  and  became  so  skilled 
in  seeing  through  and  settling  knotty  questions  that,  once 
again,  New  Salem  wondered  at  this  clerk  of  Offutt's,  who 


HOW  THE  RAIL-SPLITTER  RAISED   HIMSELF.  83 

was  as  long  of  head  as  of  arms  and  legs,  and  declared  that 
"Abe  Lincoln  could  out-argue  any  ten  men  in  the  settlement." 

You  see  now,  do  you  not,  what  pluck  and  perseverance 
will  do  ?  You  know  how  Abraham  Lincoln  started  in  the 
world  ;  how  he  came  from  the  poorest  and  most  unpromising 
beginnings;  how  poverty  and  ignorance  and  unfavorable  sur- 
roundings and  awkwardness  and  lack  of  good  looks  could 
not  keep  him  down,  because  he  was  determined  to  raise 
himself  and  become  somebody. 

In  all  the  history  of  America  there  has  been  no  man  who 
started  lower  and  climbed  higher  than  Abraham  Lincoln, 
the  backwoods  boy.  He  never  "  slipped  back."  He  always 
kept  going  ahead.  He  broadened  his  mind,  enlarged  his 
outlook,  and  led  his  companions  rather  than  let  them  lead 
him.  He  was  jolly  company,  good-natured,  kind-hearted, 
fond  of  jokes  and  stories  and  a  good  time  generally  ;  but  he 
was  the  champion  of  the  weak,  the  friend  of  the  friendless, 
as  true  a  knight  and  as  full  of  chivalry  as  any  of  the  heroes  in 
armor  of  whom  you  read  in  "  Ivanhoe"  or  "  The  Talisman." 

He  never  cheated,  never  lied,  never  took  an  unfair  ad- 
vantage of  anyone  ;  but  he  was  ambitious,  strong-willed,  a 
bold  fighter  and  a  tough  adversary — a  fellow  who  would 
"  never  say  die  "  ;  and  who,  therefore,  succeeded. 

Take  well  to  heart,  boys  and  girls  of  America,  the  story 
of  the  plucky  boy  who,  upon  what,  seventy  years  ago,  was 
the  outskirts  of  civilization,  was  all  unconsciously  training 
himself  to  be  the  American. 


84  CAFTAIN  LINCOLN. 


CHAPTER   V. 

CAPTAIN    LINCOLN. 

**  TTONEST  ABE."  That  was  what  the  people  in  and 
•^  -■■  about  New  Salem  called  the  tall,  awkward-looking, 
good-natured  and  always-reliable  young  clerk  at  Offutt's 
store.  It  is  a  good  nickname;  for  it  is  one  that  is  generally 
given  in  earnest,  and  not  in  fun.     In  this  case,  too,  it  fitted. 

"  Abe  Lincoln,"  said  the  women  who  traded  at  the  store,  "  is 
as  honest  as  the  day  is  long ;  "  and  then  one  of  them  would 
tell  how,  one  evening,  she  went  to  Offutt's  to  buy  a  pound 
of  tea.     Abe  weighed  it  out  for  her  and  she  carried  it  home. 

"  And  what  do  you  think,"  she  told  her  neighbor,  "  be- 
fore I'd  much  more  'n  got  home,  'long  came  Abe  with  a  lit- 
tle package.  '  See  here,'  says  he ;  '  somethin's  the  matter 
with  our  scales.  They  weighed  short  to-night,  and  I've 
brought  you   enough  tea  to   make  up  your  pound.'  " 

"  You  don't  say  so,"  rejoined  her  neighbor,  "  Well  \ 
that's  just  like  'honest  Abe,'  ain't  it?  Why,  t'other  day  I 
went  into  Offutt's  to  buy  some  things.  I  paid  for  'em  :  and 
what  do  you  think  ?  Next  morning,  bright  and  early,  who 
should  show  up  but  Abe  Lincoln.  '  I  figured  up  that  bill  of 
goods  you  bought  last  night,'  says  he,  '  and  I  find  I  charged 


CAPTAIN  LINCOLN. 


8S 


you  six  and  a  quarter  cents  too  much.  Here  is  the  money. 
It  jest  plagued  me  all  night,'  says  he.  I  tell  you  that  boy'll 
get  along." 

"  They  was  tellin'  me  up  to  New  Salem,"  said  the  first 


"next   MORNINr,,   WHO   SHOULD   SHOW   UP  BUT   ABE  LINCOLN?" 

speaker,  "  that  one  day,  last  week,  one  of  them  Clary  Grove 
Boys  was  struttin'  'round  in  Offutt's,  and  he  begun  to 
curse  and  swear  while  there  was  some  wimmin  around. 
Abe,  he  told  him  to  quit ;  but  the  feller  kept  it  up  just  the 


86 


CAPTAIN  LINCOLN. 


same  ;  then  Abe,  he  jumps  over  the  counter,  ketches  the  fel- 
ler by  the  nap  of  the  neck  and  lugs  him  out  of  the  store. 
They  had  a  little  tussle  ;  but  you  know  what  Abe's  arm  is. 
He  threw  that  feller  in  a  minute.  '  I'll  teach  you  to  swear 
at  wimmin,'  says  Abe,  says  he;  and  he  just  took  some  dog 
fennel  —  he  was  awful  mad,  Abe  was  —  and  he  rubbed  that 
fennel  in  the  feller's  eyes.  You  know  how  it  smarts.  My! 
but  that  feller  yelled.     By  that  time,  Abe  got  kind  o'  cooled 

off;  and  what  do  you 
think  —  he  went  and 
got  some  water  and 
bathed  that  good-for- 
nothin's  eyes  and 
face  till  all  the  smart 
was  gone.  Did  ever 
you  see  sich  a  feller?  " 
Good  opinions 
travel  and  stick,  just 
as  much  as  bad  ones ;  remember  that,  boys  and  girls.  They 
certainly  did  with  Abraham  Lincoln,  away  off  in  that  little 
frontier  town.  Every  one  liked  him  —  from  bullies  like  Jack 
Armstrong  and  others  who  had  felt  the  weight  of  his  arm, 
to  Offutt  the  blower.  Mentor  Graham  the  schoolmaster, 
Captain  Bogue  of  the  steamer  Talisman,  whose  vessel 
"Abe"  piloted  through  the  crooked  Sangamon,  and  the  hard- 
working housewife  whom  he  was  always  ready  to  help,  when- 
ever she  was  tired  out  or  her  baby's  cradle  needed  rocking. 


'  I    CAN    ROCK    AND    READ,    TOO,"    ABE    WOULD    SAY. 


CAPTAIN  LINCOLN.  87 

'■'I  can  rock  it  just  as  well  as  not,  if  you'll  lend  me  a  book 
to  read,"  Abe  would  say.  "  I  can  rock  and  read  too,  and  it'll 
sort  of  spell  you." 

His  reading,  and  his  law  book,  and  his  newspaper,  and 
his  talking  with  people  gave  him  a  desire  to  take  part  in 
public  affairs.  Offutt's  business  enterprises  failed  all  of  a 
sudden;  the  good-natured  "blower"  disappeared  from  New 
Salem,  and  Abraham  Lincoln  was  out  of  a  steady  job.  He 
did  whatever  came  to  hand  that  would  bring  him  in  a  little 
money,  and  then,  urged  by  his  friends,  he  suddenly  decided 
that  he  would  go  into  politics. 

He  struck  high.  "I'm  going  to  try  for  the  legislature," 
he  declared. 

The  legislature,  in  America,  you  know,  is  a  body  of  men 
elected  by  the  people  to  make  laws  for  the  state  in  which 
they  live  and  are  elected.  Lincoln's  friends  applauded  his 
ambitious  resolve  and  on  the  tenth  of  March,  1832,  as  the 
custom  was,  he  printed  a  circular  in  which  he  announced 
himself  as  a  candidate  for  representative  to  the  Illinois 
State  Legislature. 

But  he  did  not  go  that  time.  For,  before  election  time 
came  around,  all  the  western  country  was  in  a  ferment.  The 
Indians  were  on  the  war-path,  and  the  governor  called  for 
volunteers  to  fight  them. 

Many  of  the  young  men  of  the  state  sprang  to  arms,  and, 
foremost  among  them,  was  Abraham  Lincoln.  He  had  never 
had  much  to  do  with  the  Indians.     They  had  not  come  near 


88 


CAPTAIN  LINCOLN. 


where  he  lived,  very  often,  but  he  had  been  brought  up 
among  Indian  fighters,  and  had  learned  the  lesson  which  too 
many  Americans  have  so  readily  accepted,  that  "the  only 
good  Indian  was  a  dead  Indian."     He  recalled  the  stories 

told  of  the  fierce 
fights  in  Kentucky 
in  the  early  days,  of 
many  a  terrible  race 
for  life,  and  how  his 
own  grandfather, 
Abraham  Lincoln, 
had  been  shot  down 
at  his  own  doorstep 
by  hostile  Indians, 
while  his  father, 
lazy  Thomas,  then 
a  little  fellow  of  six, 
stood  by  his  side 
So,  with  the  rest  of 
the  young  men  of 
his  section  he  was 
full  of  indignation 
against  these  "  scalp- 
in'  creeters "  and 
was  quick  to  volun- 
teer to  drive  back  the  great  chief  Black  Hawk  and  his  band. 
Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiah,   the  chief  of    the   Sacs,   popu- 


A   RACE   FOR   LIFE. 


CAPTAIN  LINCOLN. 


89 


BLACK   HAWK,  THE  CHIEF   OF  THE   SACS. 

larly  known  as  "  Black  Hawk,"  was  one  of  the  last  of  the 
Indian  patriots.  At  fifteen,  he  was  the  leading  brave  of  his 
tribe;  at  twenty-one,  he  made  himself  chief  of  the  Sacs,  and, 
within  five  years,  he  had  conquered  or  made  vassals  of  all  of 
the  neighboring  tribes.  He  burned  with  a  relentless  hatred 
against  the  white  men  of  the  border,  who  were  fast  driving 


go  CAPTAIN  LINCOLN. 

the  Indians  away  from  their  homes  and  hunting  grounds. 
In  the  end  he  was  defeated,  and  we  rarely  give  glory  to  the 
conquered.  But  none  the  less  was  Black  Hawk,  the  chief  of 
the  Sacs,  a  patriot  and  a  hero. 

This  is  the  way  we  read  his  story  to-day ;  but,  sixty  years 
ago,  on  the  western  frontier  where  men's  homes  and  families 
were  in  danger  from  the  aroused  Indians,  it  was  read  in 
quite  another  fashion. 

The  volunteers  who  marched  against  the  "  red-skins " 
were  pledged  to  fight  for  a  short  time  only.  People  thought 
the  war  would  soon  be  ended  and  the  young  men  left  their 
farm  work  for  \\hat  many  of  them  looked  upon  as  a  "  thirty- 
day  picnic." 

As  is  the  way  with  volunteer  soldiers,  they  elected  their 
own  officers.  When  the  men  of  Sangamon  County  met  to 
choose  their  officers,  there  were  two  men  nominated  for  cap- 
tain of  the  company ;  and,  when  the  vote  was  declared,  the 
choice  was  found  to  be,  by  a  large  majority,  for  Abraham 
Lincoln.  He  was  surprised  ;  but  he  was  greatly  pleased,  too. 
Any  man  or  boy  likes  to  know  that  he  is  popular  with  his 
companions  or  his  neighbors. 

So,  off  to  the  war  marched  the  Sangamon  company  of 
volunteers  under  the  command  of  Captain  Abraham  Lincoln. 
The  state  troop  gathered  at  Beardstown,  and  there  Captain 
Lincoln's  company  was  made  part  of  the  regiment  com- 
manded by  Colonel  Thompson.  The  general  in  command 
of  the  volunteer  troops  was  General  Whiteside. 


CAPTAIN  LINCOLN. 


91 


If,  now,  you  are  expecting  a  story  of  great  deeds  — 
forced  marches,  dashing  Indian  fights,  bloody  battles,  heroic 
actions  and  all  the  adventures,  exploits  and  rush  of  furious 
conflict,  you  will  not  find  it  here. 

Captain  Lincoln's  regiment  never  had  an  encounter  with 
the  Indians.  They 
were  an  unruly  lot  of 
soldiers,  poorly  drilled 
and  without  discipline. 
One  night  they  broke 
into  the  company 
stores  and  every  man 
"got  drunk."  For  this 
act  of  insubordination 
Captain  Lincoln  had 
to  suffer.  For,  though 
he  knew  nothing  of 
the  affair  until  the 
mischief  was  done,  he 
was  held  responsible 
and  compelled  to  wear 
a    wooden     sword    for 


A   REFUGEE   FROM   THE   MASSACRE. 


two  days. 

He  had  a  hard  time  of  it  with  "  his  boys,"  and,  after  the 
inglorious  defeat  of  a  portion  of  the  army,  in  what  is  known 
as  "Stillman's  Massacre,"  the  camp  was  in  a  sorry  condition, 
short  of  provisions,  discontented  and  mutinous. 


9^  CAPTAIN  LINCOLN. 

Lincoln  was  patient  and  determined  and,  in  time,  would 
have  brought  his  men  into  some  sort  of  discipline.  The 
period  of  their  enlistment,  however,  was  soon  over  and  they 
clamored  to  be  discharged  and  sent  home. 

But,  if  his  men  displayed  no  bravery,  their  captain  on 
one  occasion,  certainly  did. 

It  seems  that  a  poor,  forlorn,  helpless  and  hungry  old 
Indian  wandered  into  camp.  He  claimed  to  be  a  friend  of 
the  white  men  and  begged  for  their  help  and  protection. 
The  soldiers  however,  had  come  to  fight  Indians  ;  so  they 
surrounded  the  poor  old  fellow  and  proposed  to  kill  one 
"  red-skin,"  anyhow. 

The  Indian  showed  a  letter  of  recommendation  from 
General  Cass,  but  the  men  said  it  was  a  forgery  and  made  a 
rush  at  the  old  man. 

Captain  Lincoln  heard  the  noise  and  dashed  out  just  in 
time  to  protect  the  victim  of  the  soldier's  brutality.  He 
placed  himself  beside  the  Indian  and  shouted  :  "  Men,  this 
must  not  be  done  !     He  must  not  be  shot  and  killed  by'us!" 

"  He's  a  spy  ;  a  spy  ! "  shouted  the  soldiers. 

The  Indian  crouched  at  Lincoln's  feet,  and  the  tall  cap- 
tain, bade  the  angry  men  fall  back  and  let  the  Indian  go. 

"  O,  Lincoln !  you're  a  coward  "  shouted  one  of  the 
armed  mob. 

Captain  Lincoln  knew  the  men  he  had  to  deal  with. 
"Who  says  I'm  a  coward?"  he  demanded,  rolling  up  his 
sleeves. 


CAPTAIN  LINCOLN. 


93 


The  "  boys "  knew  what  that  meant.  They  had  no 
desire  to  come  within  range  of  those  long  and  brawny  arms. 

"  That's  not  fair,  Lincoln  !  "  cried  one,  "  you're  larger  and 
heavier  than  we  are." 

By  military  rules,  the  captain  could  have  ordered  his 
mutineers  under  arrest.  But  he  knew,  that  to  do  so,  would 
be  counted  by  his  men  as  taking  an  advantage  and,  therefore, 
cowardly  and  tyrannical.  So  he  offered,  as  was  the  rule  in 
a  1 1  backwoods 
settlements,  to 
fight  it  out  with 
them,  one  after 
the  other. 

The  men 
knew  the  use- 
lessness  of  a 
wrestle  with 
Abraham  Lincoln.  None  of  them  dared  try  it;  so  the  old 
Indian  was  left  under  the  captain's  protection  and  no  harm 
was  done  him. 

It  was  a  small  matter;  but  it  proved  Lincoln's  courage,  if 
any  proof  were  needed.  It  calls  for  real  bravery,  you  know, 
to  champion  an  unpopular  cause;  but  this,  as  Lincoln's 
whole  life-story  shows,  was  his  way  when  injustice  or 
wrong  sought  to  prevail. 

One  day,  an  officer  of  the  regular  army^  with  that  con- 
tempt for  the  militia  which  all  professional  soldiers  always 


"MEN,    THIS    MUST    NOT    BE    DONE!"    HE    SAID. 


94 


CAPTAIN  LINCOLN. 


display,  attempted  to  take  advantage  of  the  volunteer  troops, 
and  ordered  Captain  Lincoln  to  carry  out  his  command. 

Lincoln  knew  that  obedience  to  superiors  in  command 
was  a  soldier's  first  duty.  He  did  as  directed;  but  he  went 
immediately  to  the  regular  officer  who  had  issued  the  com- 
mand and  said,  "  You  forget,  sir,  that  we  are  not  under  the 
regulations  of  the  War  Department  at  Washington.  We  are 
volunteers,  subject  only  to  the  orders  of  the  State  of  Illinois. 
Attend  to  your  own  business  and  there  will  be  no  trouble  ; 
but  any  unjust  orders  by  you  will  be  resisted  by  all  of  us. 
We  must  not  be  served  in  any  other  way  than  as  soldiers 
and  gentlemen." 

This  spirited  stand  was  respected  by  the  United  States 
officers.  They  recognized  that  Captain  Lincoln  would  not 
let  his  men  be  imposed  upon,  and  they  did  not  again 
attempt  to  act  with  injustice  to  the  volunteers. 

You  may  be  sure  that  this  brave  act  made  Lincoln  all 
the  more  popular  with  his  men. 

But,  when  their  time  of  service  was  up  and  they  de- 
manded to  be  sent  home,  Captain  Lincoln  would  not  re- 
turn with  them. 

"  We  came  here  to  fight  this  thing  out,"  he  said.  "  Fm 
not  going  home  until  it  is  over." 

So,  when  his  company  was  disbanded  and  sent  home, 
Lincoln  at  once  re-enlisted  as  a  private,  and,  as  Private  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  he  served  to  the  end  of  the  war. 

"  The  war  "  soon   came   to  an  end.     Black  Hawk  was 


CAPTAJN  LINCOLN. 


97 


defeated.  His  tribesmen  were  scattered  and  he  was  taken 
prisoner.  The  fighting  was  over  and  the  "  Independent  Spy 
Company  "  in  which  Private  Lincoln  served  was  disbanded 
at  Whitewater,  in  Wisconsin,  and  Lincoln  started  for 
home. 

That  very  night  his  horse  was  stolen  by  some  other 
home-returning  recruit,  and  he,  with  his  comrade  Harrison 
"just  hoofed  it,"  as  the  soldiers  said,  most,  of  the  way  back. 
Getting  an  occasional  "  lift,"  now  and  then,  they  tramped  as 


LINCOLN   COMING    HOME   FROM   THE   WAK- 


far  as  Peoria,  in  Illinois.  Here  they  got  a  canoe  and  paddled 
to  Pekin  where  they  just  escaped  shipwreck,  made  friends 
with  the  men  on  a  log- raft  and  on  that  floated  down  the  Illi- 
nois river  as  far  as  Havana.  There  they  sold  their  canoe 
and  again  footed  it  across  country  until  they  reached  home. 

This  was  Lincoln's  only  attempt  at  "  soldiering."  It 
was  neither  very  exciting  nor  very  heroic,  and,  ever  after,  he 
was  accustomed  to  make  fun  of  his  experiences,  and  especi- 
ally to  "  take  down  "  those  who  tried  to  boast  of  their  "  mar- 


98 


CAPTAIN  LINCOLN. 


tial  deeds  "  and  tell  how  brave  they  were  and  how  much  the 
country  owed  them  for  courageous  service.  Lincoln  never 
did  have  any  interest  in  or  sympathy  for  what  the  boys  call 


I'l.MA  riNi;    DOWN    THE    ILLINOIS. 


"a   blower."     With  him,  always,  actions  spoke  louder  than 
words. 

"  Did  you  know,"  he  once  said  in  a  speech,  at  a  time 
when  a  certain  candidate  was  attempting  to  "  trade  "  on  his 
military  record,  "that  I  also  am  a  military  hero?  In  the 
days  of  the  Black  Hawk  War  I  fought,  bled  —  and  came 
away If  ever  I  am  a  candidate  for  the  presi- 


CAPTAIN  LINCOLN.  99 

dency  people  shall  not  make  fun  of  me  by  attempting  to 
make  me  into  a  military  hero." 

But  for  all  his  fun,  this  "  war  record  "  of  Abraham  Lin- 
coln had  an  effect  on  his  character  and  his  life.  It  made 
him  familiar  with  men.  It  gave  him  a  wider  knowledge  of 
the  world.  Especially  did  it  show  him  the  selfish  side  of  life, 
and  lead  him  to  see  that  men,  after  all,  are  what  they  make 
themselves  and  are  not  to  be  called  heroes  because  of  their 
own  brag  or  bluster. 

On  the  other  hand,  his  comrades  and  associates  learned 
to  know  him  better.  They  saw  how  much  sincerity,  truth- 
fulness and  real  courage  were  in  this  tall  and  lanky  young 
militia  captain ;  while  his  willingness  to  accept  a  lower  posi- 
tion and  fill  it  cheerfully  and  satisfactorily,  showed  them 
his  manly  qualities  and  gave  them  a  new  lesson  in  honor, 
obedience  and  common-sense.  Not  many  men  step  down 
with  grace.  It  is  hard  to  do  this.  But,  sometimes,  the  step 
down,  is  in  reality,  a  step  up/ 

It  was  Abraham  Lincoln's  step  up  in  the  world.  Hence- 
forth, he  was  to  be  a  leader  among  his  fellow  men. 

Leadership  came  slowly,  however,  and,  as  is  best  in  the 
world,  for  boys  and  men,  for  girls  and  women,  the  path  to 
success  proved   long  and   full  of  obstacles  to  be  overcome. 

But  obstacles  are  sometimes  the  very  things  that  put  us 
ahead,  by  making  us  labor  to  conquer  them  and,  while  doing 
this,  to  conquer  ourselves.  Abraham  Lincoln  was  learning 
this  truth  early  in  life,  and  he  never  forgot  his  lesson. 


J/OIV   2 HE   STORE-KEEPER    GREW  AMBITIOUS. 


CHAPTER   VI. 

HOW    THE    STORE-KEEPER    GREW    AMBITIOUS. 

TTVEN  as  a  boy,  Abraham   Lincoln  had  a  taste  for  public 
-'-^     speaking  and  took  an  interest  in  politics. 

There  are  many  stories  told  in  regard  to  this.  From  the 
day  when,  in  his  humble  Indiana  home,  he  used  to  recite 
long  declamations  for  the  boys  or  say  over  the  minister's  ser- 
mon, to  the  days  of  his  first  real  speechmaking  in  Illinois, 
"Abe"  was  always  ready  to  "take  the  stump"  and  make  a 
funny  or  a  political  speech,  recite  a  poem  or  preach  a  ser- 
mon, as  his  audience  desired. 

-  In  fact,  he  used  to  indulge  in  this  "  speechifying  "  so 
much,  in  the  hay-field  or  on  the  farm,  that  his  employers  often 
objected  to  such  a  waste  of  time,  and  would  pull  him  from 
the  stump,  amid  the  laughter  and  applause  of  the  hearers. 

He  was  a  leading  light  at  the  "  speaking  meetings  "  in 
the  GentryviUe  schoolhouse  where  he  was  ready  to  discuss, 
at  short  notice,  such  topics  as :  "  Which  is  the  busier,  *^he 
bee  or  the  ant  ?  "  "  Which  is  the  more  useful,  water  or  fire  ?  " 
"Which  is  the  stronger,  wind  or  water?  "  "Which  has  the 
most  right  to  complain,  the  Indian  or  the  negro?  " 

Once,  when  he  was  a  gawky  Indiana  farm-hand,  he  faced 


HOW  THE   STORE-KEEPER    GREW  AMBITIOUS. 


in  debate,  out  in  the  cornfield,  a  famous  orator  and  politician 
of  those  parts,  and  almost  overcame  him  in  the  wordy  wres- 
tle. At  another  time,  when  a  popular  politician  came  around 
"  electioneering,"  John  Hanks  told  the  man  that  his  "  Cousin 
Abe"  could  beat  him  talking,  "all  holler."  Whereupon,  to 
prove  it,  he  turned  a  keg  bottom-side  up,  mounted  the  boy 
upon  it  and  told  him  to  "  sail  in."  This,  young  Abraham 
proceeded  to  do,  and  in  a 
discussion  of  the  subject  of 
the  navigation  of  the  San- 
gamon river,  (a  question  in 
which  every  one  in  that 
region  was  interested,)  he 
out-argued  his  opponent, 
and,  as  John  Hanks  de- 
clared, "just  beat  him  to 
death." 

Such  experiences  as 
these  had  taught  the  young 
man  to  "  think  on  his  feet," 
as  the  saying  is  ;  that  is,  to 
be  quick  in  thought,  ready  with  words  and  bold  in  argument. 

He  did  not  like  farm-work ;  he  did  not  like  store-keeping ; 
he  was  ambitious;  he  had  many  friends  in  his  own  neigh- 
borhood; he  was  popular;  he  was  "  Honest  Abe  Lincoln;" 
his  strong  desire  was  for  public  life.  So,  when  he  re- 
turned home  "  from  the  war,"  he  again  gave  notice,  as  was 


'ON    THE    NAVIGATION    OF   THE   SANGAMON 


102 


ffOlF  THE   STORE-KEEPER    GREW  AMBITIOUS. 


the  custom  in  these  days,  that  he  was  a  candidate  for  the 
Legislature. 

Some  folks  laughed  at  the  idea  of  this  raw  and  uncouth 
young  fello\\',  who  had  no  money,  nothing  of  what  was  called 
"  social  distinction,"  and  little  that  could  help  him  on,  unless  it 
were  brains  and  determi- 
nation, thinking  he  could 
become  one  of  the  law- 
makers of  the  State  of 
Illinois.         ,^^;  ^^ 


HI-NRY   Cl.AV. 


But  Lincoln 

was    bound    to 

He  went  about  mak- 


j;ivianii  Kenrv  ci^.         try 

Ne-  L-ev'ncton.  Ky.  -^^^  specchcs,  and  inter- 
esting people  in  him  and  in  the  cause  which  he   represented. 

You  would  suppose  that  a  man  who  wished  to  be  suc- 
cessful would  take  the  popular  side,  and  belong  to  the  party 
that  was  the  strongest. 

But  this  was  never  Abraham   Lincoln's  way.     He  was 


HOW   THE    STORE-KEEPER    GREW  AMBITIOUS.  103 

called"  Honest  Abe," you  know;  and,  with  him,  honesty  was 
not  only  "  the  best  policy,"  but  it  meant  truthfulness  in 
thoughts  and  words,  as  well  as  in  acts. 

At  that  time,  the  two  leading  political  parties  were  the 
Whies  and  the  Democrats.  In  the  State  of  Illinois  almost 
every  man  was  a  Democrat.  But  Lincoln  could  not  accept 
what  were  called  the  Democratic  principles.  He  had 
thought  the  whole  thing  out,  as  he  grew  to  manhood,  and 
he  became  a  Whig  —  a  follower  of  that  great  Kentucky 
statesman  and  greater  American,  forever  famous  as  Henry 

Clay. 

So,  when  he  announced  himself  as  a  candidate  for  the 
state  legislature,  he  declared  that  he  was  a  Whig  —  "  a  Clay 
man  through  and  through  !  " 

We  get  a  glimpse  of  him  as  he  made  his  first  political 
speech.  It  was  at  a  little  place  called  Pappsville,  about 
eleven  miles  west  of  Springfield,  now  the  capital  of  Illinois. 
There  had  been  a  public  auction  sale  in  the  place ;  a  lot  of 
people  had  gathered  there,  and  Lincoln  thought  it  was  a 
good  time  to  have  his  say;   so  he  stood  on  the  platform  to 

speak. 

Those  were  the  days  of  rough  times  and  rough  people. 
Almost  any  election  season  was  as  full  of  fights  as  of 
speeches.  Just  as  Lincoln  was  about  to  begin  his  speech 
there  were  signs  of  a  "free  fight"  in  the  crowd,  which  was 
composed  of  men  and  boys  of  both  political  parties.  Lin- 
coln saw  one  of  his  friends  getting  badly  hustled  and  bullied. 


104  HOW  7 HE   STORE-KEEPER    GREW  AMBITIOUS. 

At  once,  he  leaped  down  into  the  crowd  and  pushed  the  bul- 
lies aw  ay  from  his  friend  ;  one  of  them  resisted  and  began  to 
shove  and  talk  back  ;  whereupon,  Lincoln,  without  a  word, 
seized  the  fellow  and  made  him  "walk  Spanish" — you 
know  how  that  is  done  —  out  of  the  crowd.  Then  he 
mounted  the  platform  again  and  began  his  speech. 

This  is  what  he  said  : 

Gentlemen  ajid  Fellow  Citizens :  "  I  presume  you  all 
know  w  ho  I  am.  I  am  humble  Abraham  Lincoln.  I  have 
been  solicited  by  many  friends  to  become  a  candidate  fof 
the  Legislature.  My  politics  are  short  and  sweet,  like  the 
old  woman's  dance.  I  am  in  favor  of  a  national  bank.  I 
am  in  fa^'or  of  the  internal  improvement  system  and  a 
high  protective  tariff.  These  are  my  sentiments  and  political 
principles.  If  elected,  I  shall  be  thankful  ;  if  not,  it  will  be 
all  the  same." 

This  was  Abraham  Lincoln's  first  public  speech  as  a  can- 
didate for  election.  When  you  get  further  on  in  this  book 
to  what  was  almost  his  greatest  public  speech  — the  immortal 
"Gettysburg  oration," — just  turn  back  to  this  page  and 
compare  the  two.  Both  were  very  short.  Abraham  Lincoln 
never  wasted  words.  But  see  how  the  years  made  of 
the  uncouth  stump  speaker  at  Pappsville  one  of  the  noblest 
orators  in  the  English  language. 

He  was  an  odd-looking  figure  as  he  stood  there,  making 
his  first  speech.  One  who  was  with  him  thus  describes  his 
dress:     "  He   wore  a  mixed  jeans   coat,   claw-hammer  style. 


IfOlV  THE   STORE-KEEPER    GREW  AMBITIOUS.  105 

short  in  the  sleeves  and  bobtail  — -the  tails  so  short,  in  fact, 
that  he  could  not  sit  on  them  —  flax  and  tow  linen  panta- 
loons and  a  straw  hat.  I  think  he  wore  a  vest,  but  do  not 
remember.      He  wore  pot-metal  boots." 

But  looks  do  not  make  the  man.  So  when,  soon  after, 
some  of  his  opponents  began  to  poke  fun  at  the  long-armed, 
long-legged,  poorly-dressed  candidate  for  political  honors, 
this  is  the  way  he  answered  them  : 

Fellow  Citizens :  I  have  been  told  that  some  of  my 
opponents  have  said  that  it  was  a  disgrace  to  the  county  of 
Sangamon  to  have  such  a  looking  man  as  I  am  stuck  up  for 
the  Legislature.  Now,  I  thought  this  was  a  free  country  ; 
that  is  the  reason  I  address  you  to-day.  Had  I  known  to 
the  contrary  I  should  not  have  consented  to  run.  But  I 
will  say  one  thing,  let  the  shoe  pinch  where  it  may ;  when  I 
have  been  a  candidate  before  you  some  five  or  six  times  and 
have  been  beaten  every  time,  I  will  consider  it  a  disgrace, 
and  will  be  sure  never  to  try  it  again;  but  I  am  bound  to 
beat  that  man  if  I  am  beaten  myself.      Mark  that !  " 

I  have  given  you  both  these  speeches  that  you  may  see 
that  there  was  no  "  backing  down  "  in  Abraham  Lincoln. 
When  he  determined  upon  a  thing,  he  stuck  to  it  to  the  end. 
He  was  making  his  way,  as  I  have  told  you,  in  a  rough  time 
and  among  rough  people  He  knew  how  to  talk  to  them. 
They  liked  courage  and  will  and  persistence  ;  and  all  of 
these,  the  young  man  from  New  Salem  possessed. 

So,  when  election  day  came  around,  he  had  a  large  vote 


io6  HOW   THE    STORE-KEEPER    GREW  AMBITIOUS. 

and  many  who  were  opposed  to  him  politically  voted  for 
him  because  they  liked  him  and  knew  that  he  was  honest, 
straightforward  and  reliable.  He  was  beaten;  but  he 
gained  the  respect,  the  confidence  and  the  good-will  of  the 
community  —  and  he  was  never  again  defeated,  on  what  is 
called  the  popular  vote. 

This  is  the  way  in  which  he  concluded  his  printed 
address  to  the  voters  of  Sangamon  county.  It  is  typical  of 
the  man  : 

"  Every  man  is  said  to  have  his  peculiar  ambition. 
Whether  it  be  true  or  not,  I  can  say,  for  one,  that  I  have  no 
other  so  great  as  that  of  being  truly  esteemed  of  my  fellow- 
men,  by  rendering  myself  worthy  of  their  esteem.  How  far 
I  shall  succeed  in  gratifying  this  ambition  is  yet  to  be  de- 
veloped. I  am  young  and  unknown  to  many  of  you.  I  was 
born  in  the  humble  walks  of  life.  I  have  no  wealth  or  pop- 
ular relatives  or  friends  to  recommend  me.  My  case  is 
thrown  exclusively  upon  the  independent  voters  of  the  coun- 
try ;  and,  if  elected,  they  \\\\\  have  conferred  a  favor  upon 
me,  which  I  shall  be  unremitting  in  my  labors  to  compen- 
sate. But,  if  the  good  people  in  their  wisdom  see  fit  to  keep 
me  in  the  background,  I  have  been  too  familiar  with  dis- 
appointments to  be  very  much  chagrined." 

This  was  straightforward  and  manly,  was  it  not?  When 
he  was  disappointed  in  this  first  effort  for  political  honors 
he  was  just  as  manly  and  straightforward. 

He  had  made  a  good   impression  ;  he  had   made  a  good 


HOW  THE   STORE-KEEPER    GREW  AMBITIOUS.  107 

many  friends.  But  he  had  not  succeeded.  Now  he  must 
goto  work  again;  and  he  went  to  work. 

lie  went  into  business  in  a  country  store.  His  partner 
was  shiftless  and  good-for-nothing  and  the  business  was  a 
failure.  It  left  Lincoln  burdened  with  debt ;  but  he  never 
tried  to  shirk  this  debt,  as  too  many  men  do.  Though  it 
took  him  many  years  to  accomplish  it,  he  paid  off  every 
dollar.     He  wa  ^  "  honest  Abe,"  you  know. 

After  he  failed  as  a  store-keeper,  he  began  to  study  law 
again.  Sometimes  he  had  to  walk  as  far  as  Springfield  to 
borrow  a  law  book  ;  but  whatever  he  read,  he   remembered. 

His  way  of  reading  was  peculiar.  Sometimes  he  would 
sit  cross-legged  on  top  of  a  woodpile  ;  sometimes,  bare-footed, 
in  the  shade  of  a  bis:  tree,  moving  around  as  the  shade 
moved;  sometimes,  lying  flat  on  his  back,  with  his  feet  "up 
a  tree;"  sometimes,  walking  in  the  woods,  and  sometimes 
in  the  cooper's  shop  by  the  light  of  the  flaming  wood  fire. 
But  always,  whatever  his  place  or  his  posture,  with  a  book 
in  his  hand  —  studying,  studying,  studying  ! 

There  was  a  good  chance  in  that  new  country  for  a  man 
who  was  a  surveyor,  so  Lincoln  determined  to  become  one. 
He  i.ould  not  go  to  an  Institute  of  Technology,  or  a  Poly- 
technic school,  but  he  borrowed  a  book  on  surveying, 
and  studied  it  diligently  for  six  weeks.  Then  he  set  up  as  a 
surveyor. 

The  man  who  helped  him  in  this  attempt,  who  loaned 
him  the  book  and  gave  him  his  first  "  job  "  at  surveying  was 


io8 


flow  THE    STORE-KEEPER    GREW  AMBITJOUS. 


his  political  opponent;  but  Lincoln  never  forg'ot  the  friendly 
act;  and  though,  later  on,  he  had  to  fight  his  friend  hard, 
politically,  he  never  said  one  unkind  word  or  one  unpleasant 
thincT  about  him. 

In  1S33,  Lincoln  was  appointed  postmaster  at  his  home 
village   of    New    Salem.     The   duties   were  not   very    hard. 


PEOPLE    DID    NOT    RECEIVE    MANY    LETTEKS    IN    THOSE    DAYS. 


Indeed,  the  mail  was  so  small  —  people  did  not  write  or  re- 
ceive many  letters  in  those  days — that,  it  is  said,  the  post- 
master of  New  Salem  carried  his  post-office  in  his  hat.  In 
fact,  he  would  go  off  on^a  surveying  trip  and  take  the  post- 
office  along  with  him  delivering  letters  by  the  wav. 

So,  with  his  sur\x*ying  and  his  post-office  he  managed  to 


"a.    LINCOLN,    POSTMASTER. 

'  He  -1x101111! go  oil  a  surveying  trip  a?id  take  tlie post  ojfice  along  with  him.' 


HO IV   THE    STORE-KEEPER    GREW  AMBITIOUS.  iii 

live  for  several  years  his  pinched,  humble,  but  helpful  and 
honest  life.  He  was  just  as  good-natured,  just  as  friendly 
and  just  as  popular  as  ever  —  the  umpire  in  all  disputes  and 
the  peacemaker  in  many  an  ugly  row. 

One  day  a  combative  little  fellow  who  did  not  take  kindly 
to  the  "  referee's  "  decision,  strutted  up  to  him  and  said,  "  See 
here,  Abe!   I'll  lick  you." 

Lincoln  looked  down  at  his  small  challenger.  "All 
right,"  he  said,  "  but  let's  fight  fair.  See  here ;  you  chalk 
out  on  me  just  your  size,  and  I'll  count  every  blow  out- 
side that  mark  as  '  foul.'  " 

This  was  so  funny  that  the  little  bully  began  to  laugh ; 
that  took  all  the  fight  out  of  him,  and  what  promised  to  be 
a  row,  ended  in  fun. 

At  another  time,  Lincoln  came  upon  a  poor  fellow  whom 
he  knew  to  be  in  a  bad  way,  chopping  up  an  old  hut  which  he 
had  been  hired  to  split  into  firewood.  The  day  was  raw, 
the  man  was  barefooted  and  thinly  clothed  ;  he  looked  sick 
and  pitiful  ;  he  was  cold  and  shivering. 

Lincoln  stopped  and  spoke  to  the  poor  wood-chopper. 

"See  here!  how  much  do  you  get  for  this  job?"  he 
asked. 

"  A  dollar,"  said  the  man.  "  I've  got  to  have  it  to  get  me 
some  shoes." 

Lincoln  took  the  axe  from  the  man.  "  You  go  in  and 
warm  yourself,"  he  said. 

Then  he  swung  the  axe  as  only  Abe  Lincoln  could ;  he 


[12 


HOW  THE   STORE-KEEPER    GREW  AMBITIOUS. 


had  that  old  hut  chopped  into  kindlings  so  quickly  that  it 
was  soon  finished.  Then  the  poor  wood-chopper  got  his 
dollar  and  his  shoes,  and  never  forgot  the  kindness  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln. 

It  was  just  such  humane,  friendly  and  kindly  acts  as  these 


i:rkk(  r  takimn,  i   i'kll  you,     said  thk  doubter. 


that  endeared  him  to  his  neighbors,  and  made  him  respected 
and  popular.  So,  when,  later  on,  he  again  decided  to  try  his 
chances  "on  the  stump,"  he  was  successful;  for  almost  every 
one  voted  for  him,  and  in  1834  he  was  elected  to  the  Legis- 
lature by  a  majority  larger  than  that  of  any  other  man  on 
the  ticket. 


JfOlV  THE    STORE-KEEPER    GREW  AMBITIOUS. 


"3 


But  even  this  success  was  not  all' due  to  his  popularity. 
It  was  also  because  of  his  ability  and  his  "fnerits. 

"Who  is  this  man  Lincoln?"  one  citizen 'asked  another, 
in  a  town  to  which  Lincoln  had  come  "  electioneering." 

"  He's  a  candidate  for  the  Legislature,"  was  the  reply. 

"Well,  I  must  say!"  exclaimed  the  first  speaker, \vi,th, a 

J 

sneer;  "  can't  the  party  raise  no  better  material  than  that?" 


"HE   I.ED  THE    RKST   OF    THE   MOWERS   ALL  THE   WAY    ROUND  THE   FIELD. 

"  Hold  on,"  returned  the  other  citizen;  "you  just  go  hear 
him  speak  to-morrow,  before  you  pass  judgment  on  him." 

The  speech  was  made,  and  after  it  was  over,  the  doubter 
was  asked  what  he  had  to  say  now  about  Lincoln. 

"Why,  sir!"  he  cried,  "  he's  a  perfect  take-in,  I  tell  you. 
He  knows  more  than  all  the  rest  of  'em  put  together." 

It  was  during  this  canvass  for  votes  that  Lincoln  went 
one  day  into  a  harvest  field  where  some  thirty  men  were  at 


%» 


114  IIOIV  THE   STORE-KEEPER    GREW  AMBITIOUS. 

work.  The  friend  who  was  with  him  introduced  him  to  the 
mowers  as  a  candidate  for  the  Legislature. 

"  No  use,"  said  one  of  the  men,  looking  the  young  fellow 
over,  "  we  don't  vote  for  any  man  who  can't  make  a  hand  " — 
that  is,  who  can't  cut  a  good  piece  of  standing  grain. 

"  Well,  boys,  if  that's  all,"  said  Lincoln,  "  I'm  sure  of  your 
votes." 

He  took  up  the  "cradle";  he  swung  it  against  the  grain 
with  those  terrible  arms  of  his ;  he  led  the  rest  of  the  mow- 
ers all  the  way  around  the  field.  That  satisfied  them ; 
they  were  all  Lincoln  men  after  that. 

So,  you  see,  by  his  personal  bearing,  by  his  popular  ways 
and  his  real  ability,  he  reached  his  ambition  at  last.  The 
poor  boy,  the  farm-hand,  the  store-keeper  entered  public  life. 
He  became  one  of  the  law-makers  of  his  State. 

Politics  sometimes  means  low  measures,  underhand  ways, 
doing  things  one  may  well  be  ashamed  of  —  anything  to 
secure  success.  But  good  politics  means  honorable  meas- 
ures, uprightness,  truth,  noble  ambitions,  persistence,  patri- 
otism and  good  character.  Any  boy  may  aspire  to  be  such 
a  politician  —  preferring  defeat  to  dishonor,  and  feeling 
jubilant  over  success  honestly  obtained. 

Abraham  Lincoln  was  this  last  kind  of  a  politician. 
He  worked  hard  for  success ;  but  he  never  stooped  to  do  a 
mean,  a  questionable  or  an  unfriendly  act.  He  raised  him- 
self to  success  from  poverty,  and,  because  he  was  such  a 
man,  he  won  the  respect  and  love  of  all. 


THE   HONORABLE  MR.   LINCOLN.  115 


CHAPTER   VII. 


THE    HONORABLE    MR.    LINCOLN. 

A  BRAHAM  LINCOLN  was  twenty-five  years  old  when 
he  was  elected  to  the  legislature.  It  was  a  real  step 
upward  for  the  backwoods  boy;  but  it  had  been  won  by 
hard  work  and  through  many  bitter  experiences.  He  was 
poor;  he  was  unsuccessful ;  he  was  unknown,  save  to  those 
of  his  own  neighborhood. 

That  very  year  in  which  his  friends  and  supporters  had 
sent  him  to  the  Illinois  legislature,  he  had  seen  hard 
times.  The  failure  of  his  business  as  storekeeper  at  New 
Salem,  of  which  I  have  told  you,  burdened  him  with  worries, 
for  his  creditors  seized  what  little  possessions  he  owned  in 
the  world,  and  sold  them  for  debt. 

It  was  a  severe  loss  to  the  young  man.  They  did  not 
even  leave  him  his  horse  and  his  surveying  instrument, 
upon  which  he  depended  to  carry  on  his  profession  as  a  sur- 
veyor, in  which  he  was  meeting  with  such  success. 

But  he  did  not  grumble  nor  sulk.  "  It  is  the  law,"  he 
said.  "  If  I  got  into  trouble  by  my  own  carelessness,  I 
must  suffer  the  consequences." 

It  was  hard,  however.     But  good  friends  are   the    bles- 


n6  THE   HONORABLE   MR.    LINCOLN. 

sing  of  every  honest  man  ;  and,  in  this  strait,  a  friend  who 
believed  in  Lincoln  and  knew  that,  if  he  were  helped  over 
this  hard  place,  he  would  come  out  all  right  at  last,  went  to 
the  sale.  Although  he  had  but  little  money  himself  he, 
bought  Lincoln's  horse,  bridle,  compass,  chain  and  instru- 
ment and  gave  them  back  to  Lincoln. 

"  Pay  me  when  }'ou  can,"  he  said.  "  You'll  do  it,  I 
know." 

See  now,  what  an  excellent  capital  is  a  good  reputation  ! 
To  be  known  as  "  honest  Abe  Lincoln,"  was  worth  a  great 
deal  to  this  needy  young  man.  His  friend  never  regretted 
this  generous  deed.  For  Lincoln,  within  a  few  years,  paid 
back  the  debt  and  never  forgot  the  kindness.  Lincoln  never 
did  forget. 

When  he  was  elected  to  the  legislature  he  had  not  a  dol- 
lar. But  here,  again,  his  reputation  was  his  capital.  He 
went  to  a  friend  and  said,  "  I  want  to  make  a  decent  appear- 
ance in  the  legislature.  Lend  me  some  money  to  buy  some 
clothes,  won't  you?  you  know  Lll  pay  you,  some  day." 

Without  hesitation,  his  friend  lent  him  two  hundred  dol- 
lars. It  was  more  than  enough.  The  young  representative 
went  to  the  legislature  "  in  decent  trim,"  and,  out  of  his 
salary,  managed,  in  time,  to  pay  back  the  friendly  loan. 

So  "  the  Honorable  Mr.  Lincoln  "  went  to  the  legislature. 
He  did  not  do  much  or  say  much  there,  at  first.  He  was 
still  studying  books  and  studying  men.  He  knew  wherein 
he  was  lacking.      He  felt  that  he  was  ignorant  in  many  ways 


THE   HONORABLE   MR.    LINCOLN.  117 

—  indeed,  that  was  one  good  thing  about  this  remarkable 
man.  He  Avas  never  ashamed  to  say  "  I  don't  know,"  as  he 
was,  also,  never  ashamed  of  the  poverty  from  which  he  had 
risen.  He  was  always  ready  to  learn  how  to  do  things  in 
the  best  way,  and  to  gain  instruction  whenever  and  wher- 
ever he  had  a  chance  —  whether  from  men  or  from  books. 

So,  in  the  legislature,  he  spoke  but  little.  He  listened 
and  learned.  That  is  always  a  safe  and  sure  way  to  "get 
the  hang  of  things  "  and  make  a  good  beginning. 

Out  of  the  two  hundred  dollars  his  friend  had  loaned 
him,  he  bought  a  suit  of  decent  clothes.  They  were  not 
elegant  —  not  "  purple  and  fine  linen";  they  were  what  was 
known  as  "  blue  jeans  "  —  the  workman's  best  dress  of  that 
simple  and  homely  western  country. 

Everybody  in  the  State  capital,  which  was  then  Vandalia, 
knew  the  tall,  raw-boned,  awkward  "  member  from  New 
Salem."  His  fellow-legislators  liked  to  talk  with  him  and 
listen  to  his  stories  and  hear  his  shrewd  remarks  on  men  and 
things.  They  grew  to  respect  him  ;  the  people  who  sent 
him  as  their  representative  were  satisfied  with  him,  and, 
when  election  day  again  came  round,  Lincoln  was  re- 
elected, receiving  the  largest  vote  ever  given  in  that  region. 

In  this  campaign  he  became  even  more  broad-minded 
and  American. 

"  I  go,"  so  he  said  in  his  address  to  the  voters,  "  for  all 
sharing  the  privileges  of  the  government  who  assist  in  shar- 
ing its  burdens.     I  go  for  admitting  all  white  persons  to  the 


ii8  THE  HONORABLE  MR.   LINCOLN. 

right  of  suffrage  "  —  that  is  the  right  to  vote  —  "all  who  pay 
taxes  or  bear  arms  —  by  no  means  excluding  females." 

This  was  quite  a  stand  for  a  young  man  to  take.  For, 
at  that  time,  men  were  in  doubt  as  to  who  should  have  the 
right  to  vote,  and  most  of  them  were  sure  women  ought 
not.  Many  persons  declared  that  if  a  man  were  not  born 
in  the  United  States,  he  should  not  be  allowed  to  vote. 
There  were  long  and  hot  discussions  over  this  question,  and 
it  was  quite  a  popular  thing  for  men  to  cry  "America  for 
Americans."  But  Abraham  Lincoln,  even  in  those  days, 
saw  that  America  could  only  be  made  great  and  strong  and 
prosperous  by  giving  to  all  who  were  Americans  —  whether 
by  birth  or  "  adoption,"  as  it  is  called  —  the  right  to  say  how 
they  should  be  governed  and  what  the  people  should  do. 
"  Those  who  bear  the  burden,"  he  declared,  "  should  have  the 
right  to  decide  about  those  burdens." 

It  was  quite  a  brave  thing  to  take  the  stand  he  did.  But 
Lincoln  never  shirked  what  he  believed  to  be  his  duty. 

His  fearless  speech  and  his  homely  ways  made  a  great 
impression  on  the  people  whom  he  worked  to  serve.  He 
was  a  Whig,  and  those  on  the  other  side  tried  to  turn  the 
people  against  the  Whigs  by  saying  that  they  were  aristo- 
crats, money-barons,  ruffled-shirt  gentlemen,  silk-stocking 
wearers,  trying,  by  all  these  nicknames,  to  turn  the  poor 
against  the  rich. 

In  one  of  the  political  meetings,  where  rival  candidates 
made  "  stump  speeches  "  against   each  other,  a  certain   con- 


LINCOLN    IN    1840. 

"Let  it  be  my  proudest  plume,  not  that  I  was  the  last  to  desert,  but  that  I  never  deserted  her 


THE  HONORABLE  MR.   LINCOLN.  121 

ceited  and  flashily-dressed  man  put  a  long  overcoat  over  his 
fine  clothes  and  began  to  make  fun  of  the  Whigs  in  the 
usual  way,  saying  that  he  belonged  to  the  poor  man's  party, 
and  that  Lincoln  was  the  "  silk-stocking  "  candidate.  Imag- 
ine Lincoln  in  silk  stockings ! 

The  speaker  grew  quite  excited  in  his  remarks  and, 
becoming  eloquent,  made  a  fine  gesture  in  emphasis.  It 
was  a  fatal  burst  of  eloquence.  For  it  tore  open  his  long 
overcoat  and  showed  the  people  his  fine  clothes,  his  long 
chain  and  ornaments  and  his  ruffled  shirt-front. 

Lincoln  saw  his  opportunity  and  seized  it.  He  stood 
out  before  all  the  people  —  a  tall,  poorly-dressed,  awkward- 
looking  man. 

"  Here  you  are,  my  friends  !  "  he  cried,  placing  a  hand  on 
his  homely  suit  of  "  blue  jeans  ";  "  here's  your  aristocrat ;  one 
of  your  silk-stocking  gentry,  at  your  service."  Then  he  held 
out  to  them  his  great,  toil-worn,  sunburned  hands :  "  Here's 
your  rag-baron  with  lily-Vv^hite  hands,"  he  said.  "  Yes,  I  sup- 
pose I  am  what  our  friend  here  calls  a  bloated  aristocrat," 
and  he  turned  with  a  bow  to  his  rival  who  was  hastily  en- 
deavoring to  button  up  his  long  coat  over  all  the  disclosed 
finery.     That  "  settled  "  the  discomfitted  orator  ! 

In  fact,  it  does  not  pay  to  make  fun  of  a  man's  poverty, 
low  birth,  or  unattractive  appearance.  People  never  like  to 
hear  honest  poverty  ridiculed.  In  America,  all  men  have 
equal  opportunities  and  small  beginnings  are  no  bar  to  ad- 
vancement or  success. 


12  2  THE   HONORABLE  MR.   LINCOLN. 

In  this  same  campaign,  it  so  happened  that  Lincoln  rode 
into  Springfield  to  speak  at  a  political  meeting.  One  of  the 
speakers  on  the  other  side  was  a  leading  man  of  the  town  • 
who,  for  the  sake  of  a  fine  political  office,  had  recently  deserted 
the  Whigs  for  the  opposite  party.  He  had  also  just  put  on  his 
big  house  a  whole  "outfit"  of  lightning  rods — a  new  thing 
in  those  parts. 

At  the  meeting,  this  man  made  the  mistake  of  attempting 
to  ridicule  and  make  people  laugh  at  the  raw-boned  young 
fellow  from  New  Salem  who  "  wanted  to  go  to  the  legisla- 
ture." He  poked  fun  at  his  appearance,  his  mean  dress,  his 
youth,  and  called  the  candidate  "  an  uncouth  youngster." 

V  Lincoln  "got  mad"  slowly.  He  liked  fun  and  was 
always  ready  to  take  a  joke.  But  this  he  knew  was  not  jok- 
ing—  it  was  malicious  ridicule. 

He  sprang  to  his  feet  with  flashing  eyes.  He  swept  his 
long  arm  toward  his  detracter. 

"  I  am  not  so  young  in  years,"  he  said,  "as  I  am  in  the 
tricks  and  trades  of  a  politician.  But,  live  long  or  die  young, 
I  would  rather  die  now  than,  like  that  gentleman,  change 
my  politics,  and  with  the  change  receive  an  office  worth  three 
thousand  dollars  a  year,  and  then  feel  obliged  to  erect  a  light- 
ning rod  over  my  house  to  protect  a  guilty  conscience  from 
an  anQTv  God." 

The  people  cheered  the  speaker  to  the  echo.  They  saw 
and  appreciated  the  double  rebuke  —  for  men  never  take 
kindly  to  one  who  changes  his  politics  for  a  reward  ;  and,  in 


THE  HONORABLE   MR.   LINCOLN.  123 

those  days  and  in  that  western  country,  those  who  put  up 
lio-htning  rods  were  supposed  to  be  afraid  of  the  lightning  — 
which  was  always  spoken  of  as  a  "  visitation  from  God." 

But,  though  he  could  be  justly  severe  with  all  shams 
and  false  statements  and  meannesses  of  word  or  deed,  he 
had  the  kindly,  helpful  and  beautiful  spirit  that  would 
assist  an  enemy  in  trouble,  or  go  out  of  the  way  to  help 
even  an  animal  in  distress.  You  remember  how,  as  a  mere 
boy,  he  went  back  to  bring  a  timid  dog  across  an  icy  stream. 
We  have  a  later  picture  of  him  in  a  similar  act  of  kindness. 
It  was  told  by  him  as  a  good  joke  on  himself;  but  it  really 
exhibits  the  man's  kindliness  and  humanity. 

It  was  when  he  was  a  young  legislator,  and,  as  most  suc- 
cessful young  men  are  apt  to  do,  thought  pretty  well  of  him- 
self. He  was  riding  over  the  prairie  to  make  a  visit  and,  as 
he  says  of  him.self,  was  "rather  fixed  up  "^- which  means,  I 
suppose,  that  he  had  on  his  best  clothes.  As  he  rode  along 
he  saw  a  poor  pig  "mired  down"  —  that  is,  stuck  in  the 
mud.  He  felt  badly  for  the  poor  beast,  but  being  "fixed 
up "  he  knew  it  would  hardly  be  safe  to  meddle  with  a 
muddy  pig.  So  he  resolved  to  ride  by  without  even  look- 
ing at  the  distressed  animal.  But  he  couldn't  help  it.  The 
feelino-  of  pity  for  anything  in  trouble  was  too  strong,  and 
he  looked  back.  As  he  did  so,  poor  piggy  shot  at  him  an 
imploring  glance  from  its  little  eyes  as  much  as  to  say,  so 
Lincoln  declared,  "What!  you  going  to  leave  me  here? 
Then  my  last  hope  is  gone." 


124 


THE   HONORABLE  MR.   LINCOLN. 


The  appealing  look  was  too  much  for  the  young  man. 
He  turned  back,  got  down  from  the  horse  and  pulled  the 
imprisoned  pig  from  its  peril.  Then  he  rode  on,  muddy, 
but  much  relieved. 

It  was  this  sympathy  with  whatever  was  in  trouble,  dis- 
tress or  bondage —  an  outgrowth,  probably,  of  his  own  hard 
and  sad  boyhood — that,  as  he  grew  into  manhood,  led  him  to 
put  himself  on  the  side  of  the  weak  and  unfortunate.     This 


LINCOLN    AND  THE   "MIRED"   PIG. 


tenderness,  this  love  of  justice  and  hatred  of  wrong,  dis- 
played itself  in  his  action  daring  his  second  term  as  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Illinois  legislature. 

He  had  grown  to  have  more  confidence  in  himself  and 
he  spoke  and  acted  more  frequently  than  during  his  first  ses- 
sion. The  nine  members  of  the  legislature  from  his  county 
all  happened  to  be  very  tall  men.  Each  one  of  them  was  at 
least  six  feet  in  height;  some  of  them  were  over;  but  Lin- 


THE  HONORABLE  MR.  LINCOLN.  125  ^''A,  jj^ 

coin  was  the  tallest ;  and  his  height  in  inches,  added  to  his 
popularity  and  ability,  led  to  his  being  called  "the  Sangamon 
chief,"  while  he  and  his  eight  tall  associates  were  nicknamed 
"  the  Long  Nine." 

There  was  but  one  of  the  Long  Nine,  however,  beside 
Lincoln  who  felt  as  he  did  about  one  question  that  was 
already  stirring  the  hearts  of  men  in  the  northern  states  — 
the  subject  of  slavery. 

For  two  hundred  years,  negro  slavery  had  existed  on  the 
American  continent.  Gradually,  however,  it  had  been  given 
up  in  the  north  and,  in  Lincoln's  day  it  was  confined  almost 
entirely  to  the  southern  states,  while  the  question  as  to 
whether  it  was  right,  just  or  American  was  already  begin- 
ning to  be  deeply  considered  by  all  thinking  men  who  loved 
their  country  and  longed  to  see  her  prosper. 

Those  who  objected  most  strongly  to  negro  slavery  and 
wished  to  see  it  stopped  altogether,  were  called  "  Abolition- 
ists," because  they  wished  to  do  away  with,  or  "abolish" 
slavery.  They  were  good,  honest  and  noble  men,  but  they 
were  not  always  wise,  cautious  or  what  is  called  "  politic." 
They  said  many  hard  things  about  slavery  and  the  people 
who  owned  negro  slaves,  and,  by  their  fiery  words  and  head- 
strong actions,  made  much  trouble  and  many  enemies  for 
themselves.  But  people  of  this  stamp  —  who  are  what  are 
called  "  reformers,"  because  they  wish  to  "  reform,"  or  make 
over  the  world  according  to  their  own  ideas — always  set  the 
people  to  thinking;  and  thinking  usually  ends  in  action. 


125  THE  HONORABLE  MR.   MNCOLN. 

For  many  years,  however,  the  abolitionists  were  unpopu- 
lar all  through  the  United  States.  Even  .though  many  men 
and  women  believed  that  slavery  wasjj^rong,  they  thought 
there  were  other  ways  to  correct  the  eyil  than  those  desired 
by  the  abolitionists.  So  there  was  often  serious  trouble  in 
the  north  and,  especially,  in  the  states  that  bordered  upon 
the  actual  slave  states  of  the  Union.  Illinois  was  near 
enough  to  these  border  states  to  be  affected. 

Still,  as  I  have  told  you,  all  this  talk  and  trouble  set 
men  to  thinking,  and  among  these  was  Abraham  Lincoln. 
What  he  had  read  and  what  he  had  seen  led  him  to  believe 
that  slavery  was  wrong.  You  remember  how  his  experience 
in  New  Orleans  made  him  disgusted  with  slavery  as  he  saw 
it ;  when  he  became  a  man  and  a  law-maker  in  the  Illinois 
legislature  he  gave  even  more  thought  to  the  subject. 

Many  of  the  northern  states  felt  that  the  Abolitionists 
did  more  harm  than  good  ;  they  felt  that  it  was  not  right  to 
interfere  with  the  "prosperity  "  of  their  southern  neighbors, 
and  that  such  actions  as  helping  runaway  slaves  to  escape, 
or  seeing  them  through  to  Canada  by  such  secret  aid  as  was 
called  the  "  underground  railroad,"  were  alike  illegal  and 
criminal.  For  this  reason  they  took  measures  to  "  head 
off "  the  abolitionists,  and  punish  all  those  who  attempted 
to  interfere  with  what  were  thought  to  be  the  "  rights  "  of 
the  slave  holders  of  the  south. 

Among  other  states,  Illinois  passed  such  repressive  meas- 
ures —  they  were  what  is  known  in  our  history  as  "  black 


THE   HONORABLE   MR.    LINCOLN.  129 

laws,"  while  Others  were  full  of  what  the  Bible  calls  "  threat- 
ening and  slaughter  "  against  those  who  dared  to  interfere 

with  slavery. 

Abraham  Lincoln  believed  these  laws  to  be  unwise, 
unjust  and  un-American.  He  was  not  afraid  to  say  so. 
Abraham  Lincoln  was  never  afraid.  So,  in  March,  1837,  he 
made  a  protest  to  the  legislature  of  which  he  was  a  mem- 
ber, in  which  he  put  himself  on  record  as  hostile  to  slavery 
and  opposed  to  the  stern  and  harsh  methods  that  were  to 
be  put  in  operation  against  the  Abolitionists. 

He  could  — as  I  have  told  you  — get  but  one  man  to 
sign  this  protest.  This  man's  name  was  Daniel  Stone,  and 
though  this  "  protest "  reads  to-day,  after  slavery  has  been 
ended  forever,  as  a  very  mild  and  cautious  utterance,  still  it 
was  a  bold  thing  to  do  at  that  time ;  for  it  declared,  among 
other  things,  that  "  the  institution  of  slavery  is  founded  on 
both  injustice  and  bad  policy"  — and  men  had  got  them- 
selves into  terrible  trouble  for  daring  to  say  such  a  thing. 
But  you  know  enough  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  by  this  time,  to 
feel  certain  that  he  dared  do  anything  he    thought    to    be 

right  or  just. 

It  does  not  seem  to  have  destroyed  Lincoln's  popularity 
with  the  people  of  Sangamon  county  who  had  sent  him  to 
the  legislature.  They  admired  his  pluck ;  they  knew  that  he 
had  worked  hard  in  their  interest,  and,  when  he  came  home, 
they  gave  him  a  dinner  at  which,  when  they  called  him  up  to 
make  a  speech    they  thus  introduced  him :  "  Abraham  Lin- 


130  THE   HONORABLE  MR.   LINCOLN. 

coin  ;  he  has  fulfilled  the  expectations  of  his  friends  and 
disappointed  the  hopes  of  his  enemies." 

In  1837,  tl^s  capital  of  Illinois  was  removed  to  the  new 
town  of  Springfield  — now  a  flourishing  and  beautiful  city. 

"  The  Honorable  Mr.  Lincoln  "  went  to  serve  in  the  legis- 
lature to  which  he  was  again  elected.  He  begun  to  make 
his  mark  as  a  speaker  to  whom  men  like  to  listen,  as  a 
champion  for  his  political  ideas  whose  words  could  always 
be  understood  and  as  a  man  who  never  "  dodged  the  issue." 

In  the  year  1837  ^^  took  part  in  a  long  debate  in  the 
legislature  in  which  all  the  leading  men  spoke.  One  of  Mr. 
Lincoln's  opponents  boasted  that  his  side  was  the  stronger 
and  most  popular,  and  made  fun  of  Lincoln's  party,  declaring 
they  could  never  succeed,  because  they  were  so  few  in  num- 
bers and  so  weak  in  their  cause. 

Lincoln,  you  know,  kindly-hearted  though  he  was,  never 
would  stand  the  charge  of  fear,  nor  meekly  listen  to  words  of 
ridicule. 

He  rose  to  his  feet  and,  turning  his  tall  form  toward  the 
speaker,  he  cried  :  "  Address  that  argument  to  cowards  and 
knaves.  With  the  free  and  brave  it  will  affect  nothing.  It 
may  be  true ;  if  it  is,  let  it  be.  Many  free  countries  have  lost 
their  liberty  and  ours  may  lose  hers ;  but,  if  she  shall,  let  it 
be  my  proudest  plume,  not  that  I  was  the  last  to  desert,  but 
that  I  never  deserted  her." 

That  w^as  almost  prophetic,  was  it  not  ?  We,  who  know 
how  steadfast  Lincoln  stood  in  the  days  that  threatened  the 


HOW  THE   COUNTY  LAWYEJi    WON  FAME.  131 

liberties  of  his  native  land,  can  see  how,  even  from  boyhood, 
this  one  idea  of  love  of  country  filled  his  mind. 

Simple  in  manners,  careful  in  speech,  kind-hearted,  affec- 
tionate, full  of  wit  and  good  common  sense,  the  one  thing 
which  Abraham  Lincoln  could  never  stand  with  patience 
was  ridicule  of  patriotism.  As  he  rose,  step  by  step,  from 
poverty  to  position,  the  thing  that  influenced  him  above  all 
others  —  above  ambition,  above  individual  success,  above  pop- 
ularity, above  personal  advancement,  was  devotion  to  country. 
For  this  he  labored  as  boy  and  man ;  for  this  he  plead  with 
all  his  fellow  Americans ;  for  this  he  died,  when  years  of  toil 
and  sacrifice  had  worn  him  out  in  the  service  of  the  land  he 
so  dearly  loved. 


-*r» 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

HOW    THE    COUNTY    LAWYER    WON    FAME. 

/'~\NE  day,  when  Abraham  Lincoln  was  a  grocery  clerk  in 
^-^  New  Salem  the  village  squire  happening  to  stroll  by 
"  Jake  Bales's  "  woodpile,  saw  a  long-legged  young  fellow 
"  settin'  straddle  "  on  top  of  the  woodpile. 

"  Hello,  Abe  !"  he  cried  ;  "  what  you  readin'?  " 

"  I'm  studying  "  was  the  reply. 


132 


HOW  THE    COUNTY  LAWYER    WON  FAME. 


"  Studyin',  eh  ?  What  you  a-studyin'  of  ? "  asked  the 
squire. 

"  Law,"  answered  the  boy  on  the  woodpile. 

The  idea  of  that  long,  lank,  gawky  country  boy  perched 
on  a  woodpile  studying  law  was  too  much  for  the  amazed 


"  LAW,"    ANSWERED    IHE    BOV    ON    THE    WOODPILE. 


squire  who  thought  he  knew  all  the  law  that  any  one  could 
know,  or  needed  to  know,  in  New  Salem. 

He  pushed  back  his  hat  from  his  forehead.  "  Well  ! 
Great  Jehoshaphat !  "  he  exclaimed.  That  was  all.  As  he 
said,  afterward,  he  couldn't  do  justice  to  the  occasion. 

That  woodpile,  the  shade-tree  in  front  of  the  grocery 
store,  a  woodpath  in  the  forest,  the  kitchen  hearth  and  the 
light  of  the  cooper's  fire  were  Abraham   Lincoln's  only  law 


BOW  THE   COUNTY  LAWYEJi    WON  FAME.  135 

school.  But  he  kept  up  his  reading  and  studying,  went  to 
the  court  house  where  the  lawyers  were  arguing,  listened  and 
learned  whenever  he  could,  and,  years  after,  became  one  of 
the  leading  lawyers  of  the  State  of  Illinois. 

While  he  was  in  the  legislature,  he  decided  to  become  a 
lawyer  by  profession.  So  he  left  New  Salem  and  went  to 
the  new  capital  of  the  state.  This  was  Springfield;  and 
there,  so  he  believed,  was  the  best  place  to  build  up  a  prac- 
tice. From  that  time,  April,  1837,  until  he  was  elected  presi- 
dent, Springfield  was  his  home. 

He  rode  into  town  that  April  day,  on  a  borrowed  horse 
and  with  all  that  he  owned  in  the  world  packed  in  a  bag 
which  he  had  fastened  before  him  on  the  saddle. 

He  went  to  live  with  an  acquaintance  named  Speed  who 
offered  to  share  his  bed  with  him  and  to  trust  him  for  the 
board-money  until  he  was  settled. 

Lincoln  accepted  the  friendly  offer,  went  into  the  bedroom, 
put  his  bag  on  the  floor  and  said  to  his  friend  with  a  laugh : 

"  There,  Speed,  I'm  moved ! "  and  thus  he  became  a 
practising  lawyer. 

He  rode  about  the  country  following  the  courts,  picking 
up-  cases  wherever  he  could,  and,  little  by  little,  he  got  ahead. 

He  was  bright,  smart,  clear-headed,  logical  and  shrewd, 
and  he  made  a  good  country  lawyer.  But,  even  when  he  was 
most  anxious  for  business,  he  was  still  the  good-natured, 
simple-minded,  tender-hearted  man  that  he  always  was 
whether  as  rail-splitter,  boatman,  store-keeper  or  legislator. 


136  HOW  THE    COUNTY  LAWYER    WON  EAME. 

One  day,  as  he  was  "  riding  the  circuit,"  as  this  traveling 
with  the  lawyers  was  called,  he  saw  two  little  birds  that  the 
wind  had  blown  from  their  nest.  Lincoln  dropped  from 
his  horse,  picked  up  the  birds  and  hunted  about  until  he 
had  found  their  nest  and  put  them  into  it. 

His  companions  joked  him  for  such  foolishness. 

"  That's  all  right,  boys,"  replied  Lincoln.  "  But  I  tell 
you  I  couldn't  sleep  unless  Ld  got  those  birds  back  to  their 
mother." 

It  is  little  things  that  show  a  man's  character.  Such  an 
incident  as  this  —  I  have  told  you  of  some  others  just  like 
it  —  is  a  key  to  the  nature  of  this  great-hearted  man;  it  is 
one  of  the  secrets  of  his  hold  on  men  and  the  reason  for  that 
broad  humanity,  which  made  him  the  friend  of  the  oppressed, 
the  down-trodden  and  the  unfortunate. 

You  remember,  do  you  not,  how  that  splendid  poem  by 
Coleridge,  "  The  Rhyme  of  the  Ancient  Mariner," 
closes  ? 


'^  "Farewell  !  farewell!  but  this  I  tell 

To  thee,  thou  wedding  guest ! 
He  prayeth  well  who  loveth  well 
Both  man  and  bird  and  beast. 

"He  prayeth  best  who  loveth  best 

All  things  both  great  and  small 
For  the  dear  God  who  loveth  us, 

He  made  and  loveth  all." 

That    was    Abraham    Lincoln's   religion — love  to  man, 
love  to   God,  love   to  country.     In   that  spirit   he  lived,  to 


HOW  THE    COUNTY  LAWYER    WON  FAME.  137 

that  end  he  labored,  for  that  he  gave  up  his  great,  helpful, 
noble  life. 

You  remember,  too,  do  you  not,  how  he  was  so  thoroughly 
to  be  relied  upon  that  the  people  who  knew  him  got  to  call- 
ing him  "honest  Abe  Lincoln."  He  was  that  in  business; 
he  was  that  as  a  lawyer.  People  could  trust  in  him  ;  they 
could  believe  him.  He  was  an  honest  lawyer.  Men  could 
never  get  him  to  do  a  mean  or  underhand  thing ;  he  would 
never  take  a  case  that  he  did  not  believe  in  himself.  No 
man  could  purchase  his  honor,  his  justice  or  his  voice. 

"Go  to  Lincoln,"  one  lawyer  advised  a  man  who  asked 
him  to  defend  a  negro  slave  who  had  run  away ;  "  I  don't 
dare  to  take  your  case.  It  would  hurt  me  in  politics.  But 
you  go  to  Lincoln;  he's  not  afraid  of  an  unpopular  case." 

That  was  Abraham  Lincoln's  reputation.  He  was  never 
afraid  to  stand  up  for  anything  that  was  right  or  just  or 
honorable,  even  if  it  were  unpopular.  He  was  afraid  of  a 
lie,  he  did  shrink  from  a  dishonorable  action,  he  had  a  hatred 
of  injustice  and  wrong,  and  no  man,  no  matter  how  much 
money  he  had,  could  procure  the  services,  in  a  questionable 
case,  of  "  honest  Abe  Lincoln." 

It  is  the  business  and  privilege  of  a  lawyer  to  settle  dis- 
putes and  decide  quarrels.  They  can  do  much  good  in  the 
world.  Sometimes,  however,  there  are  lawyers  who  make  it 
their  business  to  stir  up  trouble  and  to  cause  trouble  for 
others,  just  to  make  some  money  for  themselves.  Abraham 
Lincoln  did  not  belong  to  this  latter  class. 


I3S 


7/(9  7/'   THE    COUNTY  LAWYER    WON  EAME. 


One  day,  a  man  came  to  him  and  stated  a  case  that  some 
lawyers  would  have  been  quick  to  undertake.  Mr.  Lincoln 
listened  patiently  and  then  said  to  the  man,  looking  him 
squarely  in  the  eye: 

"Yes,  sir;  I  can  gain  that  case  for  you.  I  can  set 
a    whole    neighborhood    to    quarrelling.      I    can    distress    a 


"UK   WOULD    NEVER   TAKE    A   CASE    HE    DID    NOT    BELIEVE    IN,    HIMSELF." 

widowed  mother  and  her  six  fatherless  children.  If  1  do 
so,  I  can  get  for  you  the  six  hundred  dollars  which,  sc  it 
seems  to  me,  belong  just  as  much  to  that  mother  and  her 
children  as  they  do  to  you.  But  you  see,  some  things  that 
are  legally  right  are  not  morally  right.  I  will  not  take  your 
case.  But  I'll  tell  you  what  I  will  do.  I'll  give  you  a  little 
advice  and  won't  charge  you  for  it.  You  look  like  a 
sprightly,  energetic  sort  of  a  man.      I'd  advise   you  to  try 


HOW  THE    COUNTY  LAWYER    WON  FAME.  139 

your  hand  at  making  six  hundred  dollars  in  some  other 
way." 

After  he  had  lived  in  Springfield  several  years  he  formed 
a  law  partnership  with  a  Mr.  Stuart.  That  was  in  1839. 
In  1841  he  made  a  new  connection  with  a  Mr.  Logan,  and 
in  1843  he  formed  the  law  firm  of  Lincoln  and  Herndon. 
This  last  partnership  lasted  until  1861. 

He  steadily  gained  friends  and  clients  —  that  is,  people 
who  brought  him  business.  He  began  to  make  money — ■ 
never  very  much,  for  he  never  charged  the  big  fees  that 
some  lawyers  do.  And,  in  a  few  years,  he  was  able  to  get 
married. 

On  the  fourth  of  November,  1840,  he  married  Miss  Mary 
Todd,  a  Kentucky  girl,  who  had  come  to  live  in  Springfield. 
The  young  couple  commenced  life  at  the  Globe  Tavern  in 
Springfield,  where  they  paid  four  dollars  a  week  for  board 
and  lodging. 

Mrs.  Lincoln  was  a  bright,  attractive  and  clear-headed 
young  woman,  who  could  save  money  much  better  than  her 
husband  could.  She  believed  in  him,  and  was  sure  he 
would  get  ahead  in  the  world. 

He  did,  slowly  but  surely.  He  bought  for  himself  and 
wife  a  little  story-and-a-half  house  in  Springfield  and 
begun  to  save  a  little  money.  When  he  first  rode  off  "  on 
the  circuit "  with  the  other  lawyers  he  had  to  borrow  a 
horse;  then  he  hired  one;  at  last,  he  was  able  to  buy  one; 
and   he  was  very  proud  of  it,  I  can  tell  you.     He  took  care 


140  HOW   THE    COUNTY  LAWYER     WON  FAME. 

of  it  himself,  and  grew  very  fond  of  it,  as  he  did  of  all  ani- 
mals. I  ha\'e  told  you  several  stories  of  his  kindness  to 
animals.      His  history  is  full  of  such. 

Once,  when  he  was  sharing  a  room  with  a  friend  on  his 
trips  about  the  state,  a  cat,  that  had  somehow  got  into  the 
bedroom  asked  in  cat  language  to  get  out,  and  finally  began 
"mewing  and  scratching  and  making  a  fuss  generally." 
Lincoln  got  out  of  bed,  caught  the  cat,  stroked  its  fur, 
"gently  and  kindly,"  till  he  had  quieted  it  down  and  put  it 
in  good  humor;  then  he  opened  the  door,  put  the  cat  out 
"gently,"  went  back  to  bed  and  kept  his  friend  laughing 
over  his  funny  stories  and  his  memories  of  the  days  "  when 
they  were  boys." 

At  another  time,  he  was  riding  with  a  brother  lawyer 
through  a  small  grove  in  Illinois  where  they  heard  a  little 
pig  near  by,  squealing  fearfully.  In  a  flash,  Lincoln  jumped 
out  of  the  buggy,  picked  up  a  big  stick  and,  rushing  to  the 
place  from  which  the  squealing  came,  began  to  pound  some- 
thing lustilv.  It  \\as  an  old  sow,  whom  he  had  cauarht  eat- 
ing  one  of  her  young  ones.      Lincoln  was  very  angry. 

"  You  old  brute  !  "  he  cried,  "  you  shan't  eat  up  your  own 
children  !  "  and  so  he  saved  the  pig. 

As  I  have  already  said,  it  is  such  things  as  this  that 
show  a  man's  character;  and  Lincoln's  kindness  toward 
animals  was  simply  one  phase  of  his  sympathy  for  those 
who  were  in  real  distress. 

Scarcely  a  step  above  animals  in   those  days  stood  the 


no IV  THE    COUNTY  LAWYER    WON  FAME. 


141 


negro  slaves.  Mr.  Lincoln's  sympathy  toward  these  down- 
trodden people  grew  stronger  as  he  grew  older  and  saw 
more  of  men  and  life.  You  remember  how  he  exclaimed 
against  slavery  on  that  flat-boat  trip  to  New  Orleans  where 
he  had  been  present  at  a  slave  auction.  It  was  then,  as  he 
said,  that  "  the  iron  entered  into  his  soul." 
Whenever  he  saw  men  in  actual  slavery  he 
sympathized  with  them  and  wished,  in  some 
way,  to  change  their  condition. 

So,  when  he  became  a  lawyer,  he  took 
charge  of  quite  a  number  of  cases  in  which  a 
defense  was  required,  either  for  free  negroes 
who  were  being  persecuted,  or  for  runaway 
slaves  whose  masters  were  trying  to  get  them 
back  into  slavery.  Lincoln  always  declared 
that  no  man  had  a  right  by  law  or  justice  to 
own  slaves.  He  could  only  hold  them,  as 
property,  by  what  is  called  "  brute  force." 
Until  Abraham  Lincoln  became  president  he 
never  could  see  just  how  slavery  could  be 
done  away  with  —  or  "abolished,"  as  it  is 
termed ;  but  he  made  up  his  mind,  early  in  his  career,  that 
he  would  oppose  slavery  actively  —  and  he  did. 

When  he  was  a  traveling  lawyer,  "  on  the  circuit "  in 
Illinois,  it  was  not  a  popular  thing  to  befriend  the  run- 
away slaves;  this  I  have  already  told  you;  but  Lincoln 
could    always    be    depended    on    to    take    their    side,    when 


A  PICKANINNY. 


142  HOW  THE    COUNTY  LAWYER     WON  FAME. 

Other  lawyers  refused  to  do  so  because  of  a  fear  of  being 
unpopular. 

"  When  I  go  to  a  lawyer  to  defend  an  arrested  fugitive 
slave,"  one  man  opposed  to  slavery  declared,  "  other  lawyers 
will  refuse  me ;  but,  if  Lincoln  is  at  home,  he  will  always 
take  my  case." 

The  son  of  a  negro  woman  was  a  waiter  on  a  Mississippi 
steamboat ;  he  had  been  a  slave,  but  was  now  free.  At  New 
Orleans,  he  went  ashore,  and,  as  the  unjust  law  permitted 
the  arrest  of  a  free  negro  on  shore  if  he  could  show  no  pass, 
this  black  boy  was  arrested  and  sold  into  slavery,  because 
he  could  not  pay  the  fine. 

The  boy's  mother  went  to  Springfield  to  find  someone  to 
help  rescue  her  boy.  No  one  would  take  her  case.  At  last, 
she  went  to  Lincoln.  He  made  application  to  the  governor 
for  help,  but  the  law  could  give  him  none.  Lincoln  was 
greatly  excited.  He  sprang  to  his  feet  and  exclaimed, 
"Nothing  can  be  done?  Something  shall  be  done!  By 
the  Almighty!  Lll  have  that  negro  back,  or  Lll  have  a 
twenty  years'  excitement  in  Illinois  until  the  governor  does 
have  a  legal  and  constitutional  right  to  do  something  in 
such  a  case." 

When  he  found  that  the  law  really  could  do  nothing,  he 
"chipped  in"  with  another  lawyer,  sent  money  to  New 
Orleans  to  release  the  boy  and  then  brought  him  back  to 
his  mother.  And,  as  you  know,  from  his  story,  he  did  not 
rest  until  that  wicked  law  was  removed  from  the  statutes. 


ffOW   THE    COUNTY  LAWYER    WON  FAME.  143 

Do  you  remember,  when  Lincoln  first  went  to  New 
Salem,  the  trouble  he  had  with  the  rough  gang  known  as  the 
"Clary  Grove  Boys,"  and  how,  at  last,  in  a  fair  tussle,  he  first 
conquered  and  then  punished  Jack  Armstrong  who  would'nt 
"  rassle  fair,"  and  thus  made  a  firm  friend  of  the  man? 

Well,  when  he  was  a  lawyer  at  Springfield,  the  son  of 
Jack,  the  Clary  Grove  bully,  got  into  trouble.  Jack 
Armstrong,  the  boy's  father  was  dead  ;  but  Hannah  Arm- 
strong, his  mother,  came  to  Lincoln  in  great  distress  and 
begged  him  to  save  her  boy's  life,  on  trial  for  murder.  Lin- 
coln was  much  moved.  In  Jack  Armstrong's  cabin,  he  had 
rocked  little  Bill's  cradle,  when  the  boy  was  a  baby  ;  and 
Hannah  had  mended  his  clothes  and  often  given  him  shelter. 
So  he  looked  into  the  boy's  case,  and  feeling  certain  that  the 
young  fellow  was  innocent,  he  fought  hard  for  the  prisoner's 
life. 

It  was  a  harder  tussle  than  the  "  rassle  "  with  young  Bill's 
father,  years  before.  And  there  was,  somewhere,  unfairness 
in  it,  too,  just  as  there  had  been  in  that  other  struggle. 
The  case  seemed  going  against  young  Bill ;  the  evidence 
was  all  strong  and  unfavorable;  but  still  Lincoln  fought  on. 
At  last,  one  witness  testified  that  he  saw  Bill  Armstrong  do 
the  deed,  and  all  the  more  clearly  because  it  was  seen  in 
"the  light  of  the  moon,  which  was  shining  brightly." 

Lincoln  said  nothing  until  he  came  to  "sum  up  the 
evidence,"  as  it  is  called  —  that  is,  go  over  the  testimony 
of  the  witnesses   and  show  wherein   it   is   not   strono-.      He 


144 


HOW  THE    COUNTY  LAWYER    WON  FAME. 


made  a  strong  case  in  favor 
of  Bill's  innocence  of  the 
charge;  but  when  he  came 
to  the  evidence  of  the  man 
who  swore  he  saw  the  blow- 
given  in  the  moonlight, 
Lincoln  opened  an  almanac 
and  showed  the  jury  that, 
on  the  night  of  the  murder, 
there  was  no  moon  at  all ! 

That  settled  it.  The 
jury  gave  a  verdict  of  "  not 
guilty";  a  messenger  sped 
away  to  the  boy's  mother 
with  the  joyful  news,  "  Bill 
is  free ! " 

You  may  be  sure  Han- 
nah Armstrong  was  very 
grateful  to  her  old  friend. 
^\  As  for  Lincoln,  he  would 
not  take  a  penny  for  the 
great  work  he  had  done. 
All  he  said  was  "  I  pray  to 
God,  Hannah,  that  William 
may  be  a  good  boy  hereafter ;  and  that  this  trouble  may 
prove  in  the  end  a  good  lesson  to  him  and  to  all." 

As  he  won  fame  as  a  lawyer,  many  important  cases  were 


"  BILL  IS   FREE  !  " 


I/OJV  THE    COUNTY  LAWYER    WON  FAME. 


145 


entrusted  to  him,  and,  at  times,  he  even  sat  as  judge  in  the 
Circuit  Court. 

He  gradually  rose  in  the  world ;  but  it  was  all  done,  as 
you  can  see,  by  hard  work.  He  fairly  won  his  way.  From 
a  borrowed  horse,  he  rose  to  the  proud  ownership  of  one 
which  he  fed  and  groomed  and  took  care  of  himself.  On 
this  horse  he  rode  away  "  on  the  circuit,"  with  only  a  pair 
of  scantily-filled  saddle-bags  and  an  old  cotton  umbrella. 
After  a  while  he  was  able  to  own  a  buggy;  a  clumsy-looking 
one  it  was,  made  by  a  country 
blacksmith,  but  Lincoln  was 
very  proud  of  it.  As  he  begun 
to  succeed  in  life,  his  wife 
wished  a  better  house  ;  but  he 
didn't  think  this  was  needed. 
So,  once,  while  he  was  away  on 
one  of  his  long  trips,  Mrs.  Lin- 
coln hired  a  carpenter,  and  put 
on  the  little  house  a  second 
story  and  a  new  roof.  Then  what  a  surprised  man  Lincoln 
was !  As  he  approached  the  enlarged  house,  he  stopped, 
puzzled  and  startled;  then,  pretending  not  to  recognize  it  as 
his  house,  he  called  out  to  a  man  in  the  street : 

"Say,   stranger!  can   you  tell   me  where   Lincoln  lives? 
He  used  to  live  here." 

He  was  a  good  neighbor,  always   ready  to  do  a  friendly 
turn.       As    I    write    this   chapter,    there    is    still    living,    in 


Lincoln's  house  in  Springfield. 


146  HOW   THE    COUNTY  LAWYER     WON  FAME. 

Waltham  in  Massachusetts,  an  old  lady  who  was  next  door 
neighbor  to  the  Lincolns  in  Springfield  in  Illinois,  and  she 
loves  to  tell  people  how,  many  a  time,  Lincoln  would  hunt 
up  her  cow  for  her  and  drive  it  home  to  save  her  the  trouble 
of  going  off  for  it. 

He  was  never  tired  of  learning.  He  was  always  studying, 
just  as  he  did  when  a  boy.  In  these  long  journeys  "on  the 
circuit,"  which  at  one  time  covered  the  wide  region  embraced 
in  fourteen  counties  in  the  central  part  of  Illinois,  he  always 
carried,  in  his  saddle-bags  or  in  his  home-made  buggy,  a  num- 
ber of  schoolbooks,  from  geometry  to  grammar,  which  he 
would  read  as  he  rode  along.  He  read  Shakspere  till  he 
knew  the  great  dramatist  almost  by  heart,  and  would  recite 
long  passages  as  he  journeyed  along,  either  to  himself  or  to 
his  companion. 

You  see  what  he  was  —  a  conscientious,  hard-working, 
successful  country  lawyer ;  a  man  to  be  depended  upon  for 
good  advice,  and  one  who,  when  he  took  a  case,  was  wrapped 
up  in  it  until  he  fought  it  through  successfully.  Whatever 
money  he  made  —  and  his  fees  were  never  large  —  he  worked 
for;  and  so  he  plodded  along,  beginning  with  nothing  and 
rising  up,  until  at  last  he  was  able  to  charge  and  receive  a 
fee  of  five  thousand  dollars  for  a  single  case.  When  that 
was  paid  him  he  felt  very  rich;  for  it  was  more  money  than 
he  had  ever  before  had  at  any  one  time. 

People  honored  him;  his  associates  delighted  in  him,  and 
it  was  very  dull,  on  circuit,  when  Abraham  Lincoln  was  not 


ffO^V  2 HE  BACKWOODS  BOY  BECAME    PRESIDENT.         149 

along.  He  always  had  a  cheery  word  for  everyone,  and  his 
stories  were  famous  all  over  Illinois. 

He  saw  hard  times,  often  ;  but  poverty  was  sweetened 
by  work,  and  even  misfortune  never  soured  him. 

Out  of  his  slender  means,  he  helped  his  father  and  step- 
mother, and  other  of  his  poor  relations.  His  father,  who 
remained  a  rover  and  shiftless  to  the  end,  lived  to  see  his 
son  one  of  the  best-known,  most  respected  and  most  popular 
men  in  the  state.  Thomas  Lincoln  died  in  1 851,  at  his  cabin 
farmhouse  at  Goose  Nest  Prairie ;  and,  before  he  died,  he 
had  learned  to  honor  and  look  up  to  this  loyal  and  devoted 
son,  who  was  slowly  but  surely  "  winning  his  way." 


CHAPTER    IX. 

HOW    THE    BACKWOODS    BOY    BECAME    PRESIDENT. 

"^  7[  THEN  Abraham  Lincoln  was  a  boy  he  heard  a  great 
*  '  deal  about  Andrew  Jackson. 
All  the  world,  indeed,  heard  a  great  deal  of  that  famous 
American  !  From  the  day  when,  as  a  plucky  boy,  he  had 
refused  to  blacken  a  British  officers'  boots,  to  the  day  when 
he    declared    "the    Union    must    and    shall   be   preserved!" 


150        HOW  THE   BACKWOODS  BOY  BECAME  PRES7DEN1. 

Andrew  Jackson  had  grown  steadily  into  fame,  popularity 
and  greatness. 

But  Jackson  was  a  man  of  strong  character;  as  self- 
willed  as  he  was  patriotic,  and  as  hot-headed  as  he  was 
honest. 

He  did  many  things  and  advocated  many  measures  that 
some  people  opposed  as  strongly  as  other  people  favored; 
and,  when  Abraham  Lincoln  was  a  young  man,  the  country 
was  divided  into  the  followers  and  the  opponents  of  Andrew 
Jackson  —  into  Jackson  men  and  anti-Jackson  men. 

At  first,  Abraham  Lincoln  was  an  admirer  of  Jackson. 
But  when,  in  1829,  that  famous  man  became  President  of 
the  United  States,  he  set  himself  firmly  against  many  things 
that  young  Abraham  Lincoln  believed  to  be  for  the  good  of 
the  country. 

One  of  these  things  was  what  is  called  "  internal 
improvements  "  — ■  that  is,  making  roads,  digging  canals, 
building  railroads  and  other  matters  that  were  for  the  public 
good  at  the  expense  of  the  Government.  President  Jackson 
declared  that  the  Government  had  no  right  to  tax  the  people 
for  such  enterprises  ;  Lincoln,  living  in  a  country  where 
"  internal  improvements  "  were  needed,  advocated  them 
strongly.  Thus  he  became  an  anti-Jackson  man,  and  made 
his  first  entry  into  public  life  as  an  anti-Jackson  stump 
speaker. 

Out  of  this  position  grew  other  questions.  Lincoln 
became,  in  politics,  what  was  then  called  a  Whig.     The  two 


HOW  THE   BACKWOODS  BOY  BECAME  PRESIDENT.         151 


greatest  Whigs  of  that  day  were  two  very  famous  Ameri- 
cans, Daniel  Webster  and  Henry  Clay.  Lincoln  followed  and 
greatly  admired  Clay ;  and,  in  a  region  and  at  a  time  when 
Andrew  Jackson  was  a  mighty  power  in  the  land,  this 
young  politician  be-  ^^^^^ 
came  a  fearless,  able 
and  devoted  follower 
of  Henry  Clay.  As  a 
Whig,  he  was  elected 
to  the  Illinois  legisla- 
ture; he  was  a  candi- 
date for  election  on 
the  Whig  ticket,  and, 
as  a  Whig,  he  was, 
in  1846,  elected  to 
the  Congress  of  the 
United  States  —  the 
only  Whig  member 
of  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives from  Illi- 
nois. 

It  was  quite  an 
honor  for  this  poor  country  lawyer.  It  was  one  toward 
which  his  ambition  had  been  leading  him  ever  since  he 
"  went  into  politics,"  as  the  saying  is,  and  you  may  be  sure 
that  the  country-folks  in  his  western  home  who  had  always 
been  prophesying  great  things   for   this  awkward   but  able 


DANIEL  WEBSTER   OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 


IS2         HOW  THE  BACKWOODS  BOY  BECAME  PRESIDENT. 


young    lawyer,    said :     '•'  See    there  !     Didn't    we    tell    you 
so? 

They  expected  wonderful  things  of  him,  no  doubt.     But 
in  a  congress,  in  which  such  great  men  as  Daniel  Webster 

and  John  Q  u  i  n  cy 
Adams  were  members, 
Abraham  Lincoln,  un- 
known except  in  his 
own  neighborhood  and 
state,  had  the  good 
sense  to  " take  a  back 
seat  "  and  "  go  slow." 
His  day  for  greatness 
in  Washington  had 
not  yet  arrived. 

He  and  his  wife 
lived  quietly  and 
plainly  in  Washing- 
ton during  his  term 
in  Congress.  He  did 
not  speak  often ;  but 
when  he  did,  he  said 
something.  He  opposed  the  Mexican  War,  as  did  so  many 
other  Americans  ;  but  he  always  voted  to  reward  the  services 
of  the  brave  soldiers  who  fought  in  that  war;  and  when 
his  term  as  Congressman  was  over,  he  went  back  to  his  home 
in  Springfield  and  again  took  up  his  profession  as  a  lawyer. 


HENRY  CLAY    OF    KENTUCKY. 


HOW  THE  BACKWOODS  BOY  BECAME  PRESIDENT.         153 

But  he  was  now  fairly  "  in  politics."  People  knew  where 
he  stood  and  what  to  expect  of  him ;  and,  when  election  time 
came  around,  Abraham  Lincoln  was  one  of  the  favorite 
speakers,  sure  of  an  audience  and  certain  to  command  atten- 
tion and  receive  applause. 

At  that  time,  the  leading  Democrat  in  Illinois  was 
Stephen  A.  Douglas.  The  Democrats  were  the  political 
party  opposed  to  the  Whigs.  Douglas,  too,  was  a  fine  law- 
yer, a  prominent  member  of  Congress,  an  eloquent  speaker, 
and  a  popular  man.  People  called  him  "the  little  giant," 
because,   though  short  in  person,  he  was   great  in  intellect 

and  ability. 

As  the  question  of  slavery  became  the  important  one  in 
the  United  States,  people  took  different  sides.  Some  said 
that  the  Government  ought  to  put  a  stop  to  it,  or,  at  least, 
not  allow  it  to  exist  in  any  of  the  new  states  that  were 
being  made  in  the  west;  others  said  that  any  person  who 
wished  to  own  slaves  ought  to  be  allowed  to  do  so,  or  that, 
in  the  new  states,  the  people  of  those  states  should  say 
whether  or  not  slavery  was  to  be  permitted  there. 

At  one  time  an  agreement  was  made  that  slavery  should 
not  be  permitted  north  of  the  state  of  Missouri.  But  when 
the  new  states  of  Kansas  and  Nebraska  were  made,  this  old 
ao-reement  was  cast  aside  and  a  bill  was  passed  by  the  Con- 
gress  of  the  United  States  leaving  the  question  of  the 
"  extension  of  slavery,"  as  it  was  called,  to  be  settled  by  the 
people  of  those  states  themselves. 


'54 


JWW    'J BE   BACKWOODS   BOY  BECAME   PRESIDENT. 


At  that,  the  people  in  the  north  were,  many  of  them, 
very  angry ;  for  they  declared  that  this  new  bill  broke 
through,  as  it  did,  the  agreement  limiting  slavery  to  a  cer- 
tain line.     New  parties  were  formed  known  as  pro-slavery 

men  (or  those  for  sla- 
very,) and  anti-slavery 
men  (or  those  against 
slavery.) 

It  was  an  exciting 
time.     Men  who  were 
public  speakers  spent 
much  time  in  arguing 
about    the    matter    in 
meetings  of  the  people. 
Douglas    was    the 
man  who    had    intro- 
duced the  new  bill  into 
Congress.     Lincoln,  at 
his    home  in    Illinois, 
was   bitterly    opposed 
to    it;    and,    in    1854, 
these  two  men  met  in 
debate  in    Illinois  and 
made    strong    speeches  in    support    of    the    opposing    sides. 
Lincoln's    first  speech  was  a  fine  one.     People  all  over 
the  country  read  it  and  began  to  ask  who  this   Illinois   law- 
yer was.      But  they  were  to  hear  yet  more  of  him.      For  that 


STEPHEN    A.    DOUGLAS. 
{LincobPs  cJtit^f  political op/^ojiciit. ) 


HOW  THE  BACKWOODS  BOY  BECAME  PRESIDENT.         155 

debate  led  to  others  between  the  two  men,  and  when,  in  the 
year  1858,  the  new  party,  which  had  succeeded  the  old  Whigs 
and  was  called  the  Republican  party,  nominated,  in  Illinois 
Abraham  Lincoln  as  United  States  Senator,  the  Democrats 
renominated  Douglas,  and  the  two  men  were  pitted  against 
each  other  in  a  great  and  famous  struggle. 

That  year  of  1858,  is  one  to  mark  in  American  history 
with  a  red  letter.  It  should  stand  out  for  all  time.  For 
that  year  made  Abraham  Lincoln. 

If  you  have  followed  this  story  carefully  you  will  be 
perfectly  correct  if  you  say :  "  I  don't  see  why  you  should 
call  Abraham  Lincoln  a  great  man.  He  rose  from  poor 
beginnings  and  was  called  'Honest  Abe  Lincoln.'  But 
other  men  have  done  quite  as  much  as  that.  Other  men 
have  risen  from  nothing  and  become  famous.  Lincoln  was 
not  rich;  he  was  not  fine  looking;  he  was  not  much  more 
than  a  good-natured,  respectable  lawyer  in  a  western  town, 
who  had  been  sent  to  the  legislature  two  or  three  times  and 
had  been  to  congress.  We  could  pick  out  lots  of  Americans 
who  have  done  that ;  and  you  wouldn't  call  them  great." 

That  is  true;  and,  up  to  the  year  1858,  Abraham  Lincoln 
had  done  no  more  than  hundreds  of  other  honest  American 
citizens.     But  now,  read  on. 

On  the  seventeenth  of  June,  1858,  the  eighty-second  anni 
versary  of  the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill  — the  battle  that  showed 
the  world  that  America  meant  to  be  free  — Abraham  Lin 
coin  was  nominated  to  the  Senate  of  the  United  States. 


156         BOW  THE   BACKWOODS  BOY  BECAME   PRESIDENT. 

That  very  day  he  accepted  the  nomination.      In  doing  so, 
he  nia^e_aj;epiark^^^    speech.     It  is  one  of  the  great  spee'^hes 
of  ffieirorld.     In  it,  he  boldly  declared  that,  if  America  were 
to  be  reklly  free,  it  must  cast  off  the  stain  of  human  slavery. 
The^  were  his  words:  "A  house  divided  against  itself 
cannot  stand.     I  believe  this  governmient  cannot  endure  half 
slave  and  half  free.     I  do  not  expect  the  Union  to  be  dis- 
solved ;   I  do  not  expect  the  house  to  fall ;  but  I  do  expect  it 
will  cease  to  be  divided.      It  will   become  all  one  thing  or 
all   the  other.      Either  the  opponents  of  slavery  will  arrest 
the  further  spread  of  it  and  place  it  where  the  public  mind 
shall  rest  in  the  belief  that  it  is  in  the  course  of  ultimate 
extinction,  or  the  advocates  will  push  it  foward  till  it  shall 
become  alike  lawful  in  all  the  states  —  old  as  well  as  new, 
North  as  well  as  South." 

That  speech  roused  the  land.  For  years,  good  men  and 
patriotic  men  had  been  trying  to  do  the  right  thing  in  re- 
gard to  slavery  in  the  United  States.  But  they  had  not 
said  just  the  right  thing  nor  done  just  the  right  thing. 
Abraham  Lincoln  had  a  sudden  inspiration,  just  as  the  proph- 
ets in  the  Bible  were  inspired  to  speak  —  and  he  spoke.  He 
put  things  in  just  the  right  light ;  he  spoke  the  truth.  If 
America  were  to  endure  as  a  free  country  it  must  be  free  ! 

His  friends  who  wished  him  to  be  elected  senator  were 
horrified.  "  You  have  made  a  great  mistake,"  they  said. 
"  You  have  ruined  all  your  chances ;  you  have  killed  your- 
self politically." 


THE   LINCOLN-DOUGLAS   DEBATE. 
("  Up  and  down  the  state  these  two  men  traveled,  speaking  to  t/ie  people,  fighting  for  success, 

educating  the  people,") 


HUIF  2 BE  BACKWOODS  BOV  BECAME  PRESIDENT.         159 

"I  am  so  sorry,"  one  of  his  friends  said  to  him;  "so 
sorry;  I  wish  it  were  wiped  out  of  existence.  Don't  you 
ivish  it,  now  ?  " 

Lincoln  laid  down  his  pen ;  lifted  his  spectacles  —  he 
wore  spectacles  then,  when  he  read  or  worked ;  looked  at  his 
friend,  and  said  :  "  If  I  had  to  draw  a  pen  across  my  whole 
life  and  erase  it  from  existence,  and  I  had  one  poor  little  gift 
or  choice  left  as  to  what  I  should  save  from  the  wreck, 
I  should  choose  that  speech  and  leave  it  to  the  world 
unerased."  That  was  a  brave  thing  to  say,  was  it  not?  His 
friends  were  right.  It  did  ruin  his  chances ;  it  did  defeat 
him  in  the  election  for  senator. 

But  it  went  out  to  all  the  world  ;  it  set  men  to  thinking 
as  they  never  had  thought  before ;  it  sent  a  death-shot 
straight  to  the  heart  of  slavery;  it  made  Abraham  Lincoln 
President  of  the  United  States. 

Not  right  away,  of  course.  That  speech  was  but  the 
beginning  of  the  famous  struggle  of  which  I  have  told  you 
—  the  discussions  or  debates  with  his  great  opponent  in  the 
race  for  the  senate —  Judge  Douglas. 

I  cannot  tell  you  all  about  these  debates ;  you  can  read 
the  speeches  for  yourselves  when  you  grow  older.  Up  and 
down  the  state  of  Illinois  these  two  men  traveled,  speaking 
to  the  people  —  in  halls,  in  buildings  called  "  wigwams,"  in 
out-of-door  assemblies,  together  or  apart,  fighting  for  success 
on  election  day,  but,  more  than  this,  fighting  for  or  against 
"slavery,  educating  the  people  of  the  whole  land. 


i6o         HO  IF  THE   BACKWOODS  BOY  BECAME  PRESIDENT. 

For,  you  see,  those  speeches  made  Lincoln  known  to  the 
people  of  the  United  States.  They  recognized  him  as  the 
champion  of  real  liberty.  People  outside  of  his  own  state 
wished  to  hear  him;  and.  East  and  West  —  in  Illinois  and 
Ohio  and  New  York,  in  Connecticut  and  New  Hampshire, 
in  Rhode  Island  and  Kansas  —  Abraham  Lincoln  held  grreat 
audiences  spell-bound,  as  he  pled  the  cause  of  liberty  and 
dealt  heavy  blows  at  slavery.  In  one  year,  he  rose,  from  an 
unknown  country  lawyer  to  an  American  champion,  whose 
praise  was  in  the  mouths  of  the  people. 

Of  course,  thousands  could  not  believe  as  he  did.  They 
were  not  ready  to  think  as  he  did;  they  said  he  was  wrong, 
and  that,  to  follow  his  lead,  would  be  to  ruin  the  country 
and  destroy  the  Union. 

But  you  know  enough  of  Abraham  Lincoln's  story  to 
feel  certain  of  one  thing  —  he  kept  at  it.  He  knew  that  he 
spoke  the  truth,  and  neither  threat  nor  abuse  nor  ridicule  nor 
fe:ir  could  move  him  from  his  purpose  nor  make  him  take 
back  one  word  he  had  said  in  behalf  of  justice  and  freedom 
and  right.  He  was  brave;  he  was  sincere;  he  was  true;  he 
was  heroic. 

He  lost  the  election  is  senator.  His  celebrated  oppo- 
nent, Douglas,  was  electe  ;  and  Lincoln  went  back  to  his  law 
office  in  Springfield. 

But  the  people  would  not  let  him  stay  there.  They  saw 
that  the  right  man  had  arisen  in  the  land  to  lead  the  forces 
of  liberty;  and  when   the  National  Republican  Convention 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN  OF  ILLINOIS. 
{As  he  looked  when  nominateJ for  president.) 


now  THE   BACKWOODS  BOY  BECAME  PRESIDENT.  163 

met  at  Chicago  on  the  sixteenth  of  May,  i860,  to  nominate 
candidates  for  the  presidency,  Abraham  Lincoln  was  no'Tii- 
nated  as  President  of  the  United  States  of  America. 

It  was  a  great  triumph  for  the  backwoods  boy,  was  it 
not?  It  was  a  greater  triumph  for  the  American  people, 
though  they  knew  it  not.  The  successful  Republicans  were 
overjoyed,  of  course ;  but  they  did  not  begin  to  know  the 
real  character  of  the  man  they  had  elected.  Ths  defeated 
parties — for  there  were  three  other  candidates  nominated 
for  the  presidency  besides  Lincoln  —  felt,  of  course,  that  his 
election  was  a  mistake,  a  misfortune,  a  calamity.  But, 
to-day,  as  we  read  the  past,  men  of  all  parties  unite  in  the 
opinion  that  the  election  of  Abraham  Lincoln  was  the  best 
thing  that  ever  happened  to  the  country ;  for,  even  though 
trouble  and  sorrow  and  blood  and  tears  followed  after,  still 
it  was  because  of  him  —  even  because  of  all  the  sad  and 
sorry  things  that  followed  his  election,  that  America  moved 
upward  and  onward.  It  was  a  new  reading  of  the  old  Latin 
motto ;  "  through  night  to  light."  I  wonder  if  you  know 
why  ? 

But  to  me,  one  of  the  things  to  remember  about  the  elec- 
tion of  Lincoln  was  the  man's  own  bearing  in  victory.  Of 
course,  he  was  proud  to  know  that  he  had  been  made  the 
leader  of  the  forces  of  freedom  ;  but  he  knew,  as  few  other 
men  did,  what  a  responsibility  and  what  a  burden  this  great 
gift  of  power  meant.  He  was  not  jubilant;  he  was 
thoughtful,  silent,  almost  sad. 


1 64  HO  IV   THE   BACKWOODS  BOY  BECAME   PRESIDENT. 

He  spent  the  months  that  remained  between  his  election 
and  his  inauguration  in  settling  up  his  law  business  and 
planning  out  his  work.  He  was  terribly  bothered  by  office- 
seekers  —  men  who,  because  they  belonged  to  the  party  that 
had  elected  him  and  had  worked  for  his  election  as  all  inter- 
ested American  citizens  should  work  for  success,  thought  he 
ought  to  give  them  positions  in  his  new  government.  It's 
poor  business,  this  office-seeking,  boys  and  girls.  Some  one, 
we  know,  must  fill  this  or  that  office;  but  it  is  a  great  deal  bet- 
ter to  let  the  office  seek  you  than  to  go  seeking  it,  yourself. 
And  it  does  make  a  great  deal  of  worry  and  unnecessary  work 
for  the  man  who  has  the  gift  of  such  office  in  his  power. 

At  last,  the  time  came  for  Abraham  Lincoln  to  bid  good- 
bye to  his  home.  What  do  you  suppose  was  one  of  the  last 
things  he  did?  He  traveled  down  to  the  little  hoj.ise  in 
which  his  good  old  stepmother  was  living  and  bade  her 
an  affectionate  farewell. 

The  old  lady  loved  him  dearly;  she  was  very  proud  of 
him  and  of  his  success;  but  she  was  terribly  afraid  some- 
thing would  happen  to  him.  She  knew,  so  she  told  him, 
she  should  never  see  him  again.  "  They  will  kill  you,  Abe," 
she  said;  "I  know  they  will,"  and  she  clung  to  him  with 
tears. 

"  O,  no,  mother;  no,  no,"  her  stepson  replied;  "don't  you 
be  afraid;  they  won't  do  that.  Trust  in  the  Lord,  and  all 
will  be  well.  We  shall  see  each  other  again."  And  then  he 
bade  her  good-bye. 


HOW  THE  BACKWOODS  BOY  BECAME  PRESIDENT.         165 


On  the  eleventh  of  February,  1861,  he  left  Springfield 
for  Washington.  A  great  crowd  gathered  at  the  railway 
station  to  "  see  him  off."  This  is  the  farewell  speech  he 
made  to  the  people  of  his  home-town,  as  he  stood  on  the 
rear  platform  of  the  train  while  the  rain  was  falling  fast,  and 
all  men  stood  silent  and  with  uncovered  heads: 

''Friends:  No  one,  who  has  never  been  placed  in  a  like 
position,  can  understand  my  feelings  at  this  hour,  nor  the 
oppressive  sadness  I  feel  at  this  parting  For  more  than  a 
quarter  of  a  century 
I  have  lived  among 
you,  and  during  all 
that  time  I  have 
received  nothing 
but  kindness  at  your 
hands.  Here,  I  have 
lived  from  my  youth 

Unill    now     i    am    an  "they  will  kill  you,  abe,"  she  said. 

old  man.     Here,  the 

most  sacred  ties  of  earth  were  assumed.  Here,  all  my 
children  were  born ;  here,  one  of  them  is  buried.  To  you, 
dear  friends,  I  owe  all  that  I  have,  all  that  I  am  All  the 
strange,  checkered  past  seems  to  crowd  now  upon  my  mind. 
To-day,  I  leave  you.  I  go  to  assume  a  task  more  difficult 
than  that  which  devolved  upon  Washington.  Unless  the 
great  God  who  assisted  him  shall  be  with  and  aid  me,  I  shall 
fail ;    but  if  the  same  omniscient    mind  and  almighty  arm 


i66 


HOW  THE  BACKWOODS  BOY  BECAME  PRESIDENT. 


that  directed  and  protected  him  shall  guide  and  support 
me,  I  shall  not  fail  —  I  shall  succeed!  Let  us  all  pray 
that  the  God  of  our  fathers  may  not  forsake  us  now.  To 
him,  I  commend  you  all.  Permit  me  to  ask  that,  with  equal 
sincerity  and  faith,  you  will  invoke  his  wisdom  and  guid- 
ance for  me.  With  these  words  I  must  leave  you,  for 
how  long  I  know  not.  Friends,  one  and  all,  I  must  now 
bid  you  an  affectionate  farewell." 

Then  the  train  moved  slowly  from  the  station,  with 
Abraham  Lincoln  still  standing  on  the  platform,  taking  his 
last  view  of  his  home.     It  was  his  last,  indeed. 

Soon,  Springfield  was  left  behind,  and  the  train  rolled 
eastward.  The  boy  of  the  log  cabin  was  on  his  way  to  the 
White  House. 


HOW  THE  FLAT-BOATMAN  GUIDED  THE  SHIP  OF  STATE.     167 


CHAPTER   X. 

HOW    THE    FLAT-BOATMAN    GUIDED    THE    SHIP    OF    STATE. 

WHEN  you  grow  to  be  men  and  women,  and  look  back 
at  the  years  that  have  gone,  you  will  be  surprised  to 
find  how  well  you  remember  things  that  happened  when  you 
were  children. 

Certain  of  the  happenings  of  your  young  days,  you  will 

remember  even  better  than  things  that  occurred  later  in  life. 

There    are  some   lines,  by  a  writer  whose  name  I   have 

forgotten,  that  describe  this  much  better  than  I  can  explain 

to  you.     Here  they  are  : 

"  How  is  it,  growing  old,  that  what  we've  been 

In  earliest  days  should  cling  to  memory  yet; 
When  all  the  interval  of  life  between, 

Compared  to  that,  seems  easy  to  forget? 

"How  life,  in  which  we've  fought  and  fagged  and  striven. 

Looked  back  upon,  should  be  but  empty  noise, 
While  far  between  it,  like  the  hills  of  heaven. 

Stand  out  the  days  when  we  were  girls  and  boys? 

Ask  your  father  and  mother  if  this  is  not  so. 
One  of  those  days  stands  ever  out  to  me  —  a  particularly 
high-peaked  "  hill  of  heaven."     I   was  a  schoolboy  in   New 


i68     HOIV  THE  FLAT-BOATMAN  GUIDED   THE  SHIP  OF  STATE. 

York  city.  It  was  a  February  day  in  1861.  I  stood  on 
a  crowded  street  corner.  A  procession  was  marching  down 
the  street.  There  was  a  great  crowd.  Music  was  playing. 
Flags  were  e^'erywhere.  As  I  peeped  out  between  the 
surrounding  shoulders  of  the  throng  that  lined  the  side- 
walk, I  caught  a  glimpse  of  an  open  carriage,  in  which 
stood  a  tall — -as  I  remember  him,  a  very  tall  man;  his 
clothes  hung  loosely,  almost  ungracefully,  upon  him  ;  he 
was  lifting  his  hat  in  acknowledgement  of  the  cheers  that 
greeted  him  ;  his  hands  were  large ;  his  arms  seemed  long 
and  almost  ungainly;  but  his  eyes  were  full  of  light,  and  a 
pleasant  smile  plaved  over  his  face,  crowned  with  its  high 
forehead  and  its  thick  black  hair.  Just  as  I  caught  a  full 
view  of  him,  he  ^\'as  passing  beneath  a  great  flag,  stretched 
across  the  street ;  and  on  the  bottom  of  the  flag,  as  it  swayed 
in  the  breeze,  \\'as  flung  out  this  motto  in  bold  letters: 
"  Fear  not,  Abraham  !  I  am  thy  shield  and  thy  exceeding 
great  reward." 

It  was  my  first  and  only  sight  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 
Do  you  wonder  that  I  never  forgot  it? 

He  was  on  his  way  to  Washington  to  be  inaugurated  as 
President  of  the  United  States.  Strange  rumors  were  afloat. 
It  was  whispered  that  it  was  dangerous  for  him  to  try  to  get 
to  the  capital.  There  had  even  been  threats  that  he  would 
never  get  there  alive.  Men  who  were  bitterly  opposed  to 
him  said  he  would  never  live  to  be  inaugurated. 

The  country  w^as  in  great  excitement.     He  was  the  leader 


HOW  7  HE  FLAT-BO  A  I'M  AN  GUIDED  THE  SHIP  OF  S2ATE.     169 


of  a  party  which  was,  for  the  first  time,  in  power,  and  which 
was  pledged  to  enforce  the  laws,  even  against  those  who 
were  banded  together  to  set  those  laws  at  defiance.  He  was 
the  champion  of  liberty  and  the  rights  of  man  against 
slavery  and  the  selfishness  of  man. 

It  has  always  seemed  to  me  that  Abraham  Lincoln  must 
have  seen  and  taken  to  heart 
that  motto  on  the  flag.     For 
he  did  not  fear. 

Yielding  to  the  entreaties 
of  his  friends,  he  took  an- 
other train  from 
Philadelphia 
than  the  one 
originally  in- 
tended, and  thus 
escaped  the  deep- 
laid  plot  that 
had  been  formed 

to  murder  him  as  he  passed  through  Baltimore.  True  brav- 
ery is  not  to  needlessly  face  danger;  it  is  to  face  it  fearlessly 
when  it  comes.  It  is  those  lines  of  Shakspere  again,  which 
I  have  already  quoted  for  you : 

"  Avoid  the  entrance  to  a  quarrel." 

Lincoln,  at  that  critical  time,  displayed  his  courage  by  keep- 
ing out  of  unnecessary  danger. 


ON   THE  WAY  TO   WASHINGTON. 


170     BO  IV  THE  FLAl-BOAlAfAjY  GUIDED  THE  SHIP  OF  STATE. 

So  he  came  to  Washington;  and,  on  the  fourth  of  March, 
in  the  year  iS6i,  standing  on  a  platform  built  for  the  occa- 
sion on  the  splendid  east-front  of  the  then  uncompleted 
capitol,  he  took  the  oath  of  office,  administered  to  him  by 
Chief  Justice  Taney,  and  read  his  inaugural  address  as 
President  of  the  United  States  of  America. 

And  what  do  you  think?  In  the  throng  about  him,  a 
short,  stout,  dignified-looking  gentleman  held  the  new 
president's  hat  ^\•hile  he  was  delivering  his  inaugural 
address.  That  gentleman  was  his  opponent  and  greatest 
ri\'al,  the  one  who  had  met  Lincoln  in  the  great  debate  that 
really  made  the  tall  westerner  president.  It  was  the  "little 
giant  "  —  Senator  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  of  Illinois. 

As  soon  as  Douglas  found  that  the  liberties  of  his 
native  land  were  endangered  and  that  the  Union  was  in 
peril,  he  stood  manfully  by  the  side  of  his  former  rival,  and, 
by  his  patriotic  action,  brought  to  Lincoln's  support  many 
who  might  have  been  waverers.  That  is  why  he  stood  so 
near  the  president  on  Inauguration  Day. 

President  Lincoln's  inaugural  address  was  a  grand  speech. 
As  you  look  at  Mr.  Bridgman's  picture  of  the  inauguration, 
which  he  has  made  to  show  you  the  historic  scene,  you  can 
almost  imagine  that  the  new  president  is  uttering  those  noble 
words  of  peace  and  good-will,  of  entreaty  and  patriotism, 
weighted  with  sadness  but  bold  in  their  firmness,  that  will 
live  through  the  ages  : 

"  I  am  loth   to  close.     We  are  not  enemies,  but   friends. 


THE    INAUGURATION    OF   PRESIDENT   LINCOLN    (MARCH  4,    iSGl). 
"  IVe  are  not  enemies  but  friends.      We  must  not  be  enemies. " 


HOW  THE  FLAT-BOATMAN  GUIDED  THE  SHIP  OF  STATE.     173 

We  must  not  be  enemies.  Though  passion  may  have 
strained,  it  must  not  break  our  bands  of  affection.  The 
mystic  chords  of  memory,  stretching  from  every  battlefield 
and  patriot  grave  to  every  living  heart  and  hearthstone  all 
over  this  broad  land,  will  yet  swell  the  chorus  of  the  Union, 
when  again  touched,  as  surely  they  will  be,  by  the  better 
angels  of  our  nature." 

Those  words  of  brotherly  love  and  entreaty  had  no 
influence  on  the  leaders  of  the  disunion  party  in  the 
southern  states.  Even  before  the  inauguration  of  Lincoln, 
seven  of  the  southern  states  had  declared  that  they  had  a 
right  to  withdraw  from  the  Union  —  "  secede,"  they  called 
it  —  and  had  done  so.  At  a  convention  in  Montgomery, 
in  Alabama,  the  men  sent  as  delegates  in  the  name  of  their 
respective  states,  banded  together  and  announced  to  the 
v/orld  th2.t  a  new  nation  had  been  formed,  under  the  name 
of  the  Confederate  States  of  America.  Over  this  so- 
called  nation,  Jefferson  Davis  of  Mississippi  was  elected 
to  preside  as  president. 

Other  states  joined  this  confederacy  later;  and,  through 
the  four  years  of  strife  that  followed,  eleven  of  the  southern 
states  were  included  in  the  Confederacy. 

I  shall  not  attempt  to  explain  the  causes  of  the  great 
rebellion.  This  is  not  the  story  of  the  War  for  the  Union ; 
it  is  the  story  of  the  man  who,  through  all  the  trouble  that 
followed,  acted  for  one  simple  result — to  save  the  Union; 
Abraham  Lincoln  the  American. 


iZ^ 


174    J^OIV  THE  FLAT-BOATMAN  GUIDED  THE  SHIP  OF  STATE. 


He  had  a  great  task  before  him.  But  no  man  in  the 
n'orld  was  better  fitted  for  that  task. 

He  would  not  declare  war.  He  worked  for  peace.  He 
felt  that  war  must  come;  but  he  meant  that  the  first  act  that 
brought  about  war  should  come,  not  from  him,  but  from 
those  who  had  arrayed  themselves  against  the  Union. 

When  men  demanded  that  he  should  "  do  somethino- " 
to  show  •'  the  rebels,"  as  the  confederates 
were  called,  that  they  must  be  careful  how 
they  talked  and  acted,  Lincoln  said:  "  I 
am  not  here  to  make  war  against  our  fel- 
low Americans.  I  am  here  to  preserve 
the  laws  and  maintain  the  Union.  If  these 
men  openly  make  war  on  the  government, 
then  it  is  time  to  act.  They  must  strike 
the  first  blow." 
They  did.  They,  too,  became  tired  of  waiting.  They 
were  as  impatient  as  Lincoln  was  patient.  They  wished  the 
North  to  make  the  first  move  that  would  really  mean  war; 
but  the  president  would  not ;  and  then  the  southern  rebels 
made  their  first  great  mistake.  They  fired  on  Fort  Sumter, 
in  the  harbor  of  Charleston  in  South  Carolina.  Major  Rob- 
eit  Anderson,  the  officer  in  charge  of  the  fort,  surrendered  it 
after  a  gallant  stand.  War  at  last  was  begun.  At  once  the 
North,  which  the  southern  leaders  hoped  would  be  divided, 
was  made  one  for  Union,  and  aroused  to  resent  the  attack 
upon  the  government  of  the  Republic.    ' . 


MAJOR   ANDERSON. 


HO IV  THE  FLAT-BOATMAN  GUIDED   THE  SHIF  OF  STATE.     175 


The  North  sprang  to  arms.  President  Lincohi  called 
for  seventy-five  thousand  troops.  One  hundred  thousand 
answered   the   call.     Washington    became  a  camp,  and,  for 


BOYS    OF    '6r  — -F-NLISTING    FOR    THE    UNION. 


four  years,  the  men  of  the  North  and  the  men  of  the  South 
fought  for  the  mastery.  In  that  four  years,  four  million 
men,  from  the  North  and  South,  marched  to  the  field  of  war. 
It  was  a  terrible  war.  No  need  to  tell  you  that,  however; 
scarce  a  boy  or  girl,  living  in  America  to-day,  but  is  familiar 
with  the  story,  and  knows  some  one,  relative  or  friend,  who 


176     NO  IV  THE  FLAT-BOATMAN  GUIDED  THE  SHIP  OF  ST  A  IE. 

\va§,xai£  of  the  soldier  boys  of  '61  — either  on  the  northern 
or  southern  side. 

From  the  very  beginning  of  that  dreadful  strife,  Abraham 
Lincoln  was  the  leader.  This  man,  untrained  to  war,  who 
had  never  held  any  office  of  responsibility  or  direction,  inex- 
perienced, unfamiliar,  ignorant  —  so  far  as  affairs  of  govern- 
ment and  of  battle  were  concerned  —  took  his  place  at  the 
helm  of  what  we  call  the  Ship  of  State,  determined  to  do 
one  thing  —  to  save  it  from  shipwreck. 

He  called  able  men  about  him  as  his  advisers.  He  gave 
them  plenty  of  work  to  do,  and  they  did  it.  These  advisers 
were  members  of  what  is  called  the  cabinet,  and  some  of 
them  imagined  that,  with  more  experience  and  a  broader 
knowledge  of  affairs  than  had  this  new  president,  fresh 
from  a  western  town,  they  would  direct  and  "  steer"  him. 

But  they  soon  learned  that  they  had  a  leader  to  deal 
with  ;  not  a  follower.  Once,  two  senators  took  upon  them- 
selves to  advise  and  caution  him  in  regard  to  some  impor- 
tant measure. 

"  Beware,  Mr.  President,"  one  of  them  said;  "do  not  go 
too  fast ;  there  is  danger  ahead." 

"  I  know  that,"  Lincoln  replied.  "  I  shall  go  just  so  fast, 
and  only  so  fast  as  I  think  Lm  right  and  the  people  are 
ready  for  the  step." 

When  some  one  told  him  that  one  of  his  cabinet  officers 
was  supposed  to  be  really  the  "power  behind  the  throne"  — 
that  is,  the  one  who  really  ruled  him  —  Lincoln   replied,  "  I 


PRESIDENT   LINCOLN   AND  HIS   CHIEF   ADVISERS. 
Stanton,  Secretary  Of  War.  y,^^   Presiaent.  Seward,  Secretary  of  StaU. 

Chase,  Secretary  of  the  Treasury. 


Welles,  Seci-etary  of  the  Navv. 


HOW  THE  FLAT-BOATMAN  GUIDED  THE  SHIP  OF  STATE.     179 

may  not  rule  myself,  but  certainly  he  shall  not.  The  only 
ruler  I  have  is  my  conscience  —  following  God  in  it  —  and 
these  men  will  have  to  learn  that  yet." 

They  did  learn  it,  speedily.  They  found  out  that 
Lincoln's  brain  was  as  clear  and  his  hand  as  strong  as 
that  of  any  living  man;  and  they  came  at  last  to  know 
how  great  and  clear-sighted  he  was,  to  follow  where  he  led, 
and  to  carry  out  his  ideas,  not  theirs. 

As  he  led  his  associates  and  helpers,  so  he  led  the 
people.  At  fi.rst,  men  thought  him  slow,  and  were  loud 
in  criticism  and  demands.  But  Lincoln  stood  firm.  His 
hand  was  on  the  rudder;  he  was  steering  the  ship  on  the 
best  and  safest  course. 

He  largely  won  success  by  his  patience.  As  I  have  told 
you,  it  was  because  he  would  not  act  impatiently  and  make 
the  first  act  of  war,  that  the  South  rushed  ahead  and  crip- 
pled its  cause  by  over-hastiness. 

So,  later,  when  a  brave  naval  officer.  Captain  Wilkes,  boldly 
stopped  a  British  ship,  the  Trent,  and  took  from  it  two  men 
whom  the  Confederate  government  were  sending  as  envoys 
to  Europe  to  plead  the  cause  of  the  South  with  England 
and  France,  Lincoln,  in  the  face  of  the  anger  of  the  North, 
decided  that  Captain  Wilkes  had  no  right  to  take  these  men 
from  a  foreign  vessel,  and  had  them  set  at  liberty.  That 
was  because  he  knew  that  if  the  government  refused  to  give 
them  up,  it  would  mean  another  war  with  England ;  and  he 
said,  like  the    great   statesman  that  he  was,  "In    181 2  we 


i8o     now  I'HE  FLAT-BO ATAIAN  GUIDED  THE  SHIP  OF  STATE. 

fought  England  for  doing  just  what  Captain  Wilkes  has 
done.  If  Great  Britain  demands  the  release  of  these  men 
we  must  give  them  up,  if  we  believe  in  what  we  fought  for 
in  1812.     Besides  —  one  war  is  enough,  now." 

,  He  stood  almost  alone.  The  North  would  have  him 
keep  the  men  prisoners,  even  if  it  meant  wai  with  England. 
The  South  wished  to  see  the  North  drawn  into  such  a  war, 
because  that  meant  England's  help ;  so  it,  too,  hoped  the  presi- 
dent would  not  give  up  its  envoys.  But  this  great,  far-seeing 
man  declared  that,  according  to  law,  justice  and  common 
sense,  there  was  but  one  thing  to  do.  He  did  it.  The 
prisoners  were  set  free  and  proceeded  to  England.  A  war 
with  Great  Britain  was  averted ;  and,  to-day,  the  world 
applauds  Lincoln's  wisdom  and  patience.  The  great  presi- 
dent never  made  a  mistake. 

At  another  time,  one  of  the  Union  generals,  the  brave 
soldier  and  "pathfinder,"  Fremont,  declared  that  all  slaves 
belonging  to  "  rebels  in  arms,"  in  the  region  under  his  com- 
mand were  free.  The  North  was  divided  in  opinion.  Many 
people  thought  this  a  great  blow  at  the  South.  The  south- 
erners were  very  angry;  but  they  were  glad,  too;  because 
they  thought  such  an  act  would  bring  to  their  side  all  the 
men  in  the  North,  and  especially  in  what  were  called  the 
border  states,  who  did  not  wish  to  have  slavery  interfered 
with. 

Lincoln  knew  the  American  people  better  than  any  other 
man.      He  knew  just  how  far  to  go,  and  just  what  to  do. 


Robert  E.  Lee. 
A.  S,  Johnston. 


CONFEDERATE   LEADERS   AND  GENERALS. 
Jefferson  Davis. 


"  Stonewall "  Jackson. 
Alexander  H.  Stephens. 


HOW  THE  FLAT-BOATMAN  GUTDED  THE  SHIP  OF  STATE.     183 


He  quietly  over-ruled,  as  it  is  called,  Fremont's  hasty  act; 
and,  when  another  general  attempted  the  same  thing,  he 
over-ruled  his  action,  also,  and  gave  public  notice  that  the 
President  of  the  United  States  was  the  one  to  decide  when 
such  a  measure  was 
necessary,  and  not 
soldiers  or  generals 
in  the  field.  This 
action  held  the  wav- 
ering people  of  the 
border  states  loyal ; 
it  really  weakened 
the  rebel  cause  far 
more  than  the  hasty 
declarations  of  the 
two  generals  could 
have  done. 

When  good  old 
General  Scott  retired 
from  the  command 
of  the  army  raised 
for  the  defence  of  the 
Union,  and  General  McClellan  was  placed  in  command, 
Lincoln,  while  giving  the  new  commander  all  possible  help 
and  support,  himself  carefully  planned  what  seemed  best  to 
be  done;  and,  just  as  he  had,  when  a  boy,  made  himself 
master  of  grammar  and  geometry  and  surveying  and  law,  he 


GENERAL   WINFIKLD    SCOTT. 


i84     HO  IV  THE  FLAT-BOATMAN  GUIDED  THE  SHIP  OF  STATE. 

now  set  himself  to  studying  out  the  science  of  war  and  how  to 
fight  battles.  The  president's  "  plan,"  as  he  called  it,  was 
made  fun  of  by  McClellan  and  the  men  who  thought  they 
knew  better.  It  was  not  accepted  by  the  Council  of  War  to 
whom  it  was  submitted.  But  time  proved  McClellan  wrong 
and  Lincoln  right ;  and  it  was  the  president's  "  plan,"  finally, 
that  led  the  way  toward  success. 

As  with  the  war  measures,  so  with  the  others  ;  Lincoln's 
hand  was  in  them  all.  The  way  in  which  the  nation  dealt 
with  foreign  countries,  some  of  them  friendly  to  the  south- 
ern cause  and  anxious  to  see  it  succeed  ;  the  raising  of  the 
vast  sums  of  money  necessary  to  carry  on  the  war  and  meet 
the  expenses  of  the  government;  the  part  that  the  navy  took 
in  the  great  strife ;  the  conduct  of  what  is  called  the  civil 
departments  of  the  government,  that  is,  those  not  dealing 
with  the  army  or  navy  —  these  were  all  under  Lincoln's  eye 
and  had  his  constant  and  earnest  care. 

Indeed,  military  authorities  now  declare  that  Abraham 
Lincoln  was  a  better  director  than  his  generals,  as  students 
of  history  assert  that  he  was  a  better  diplomatist  than  his 
ministers,  and  a  greater  statesman  than  his  councillors. 

The  burden  placed  upon  him  was  enough  to  break  down 
any  man.  I  don't  believe  there  was  another  man  in  all  the 
world  who  could  have  lived  through  all  the  worry  and 
trouble  and  strain  and  responsibility  of  that  terrible  time 
when  the  nation  was  fighting  for  life.  But  Lincoln  \\as  not 
only  able  to  do  it  all;  he  did  it  all.     His  hand  was  on  the 


HOW  THE  FLAT-BOATMAN  GUIDED  THE  SHIP  OF  STATE.     185 

helm,  guiding,  directing,  and  watchful.  With  a  patience 
greater  than  any  man  ever  possessed,  he  stood  erect  and 
vigrilant  until  men  came  to  see  that  he  knew  what  he  was 
about,  that  he  was  right,  and  that,  to  him  alone,  the  Republic 
must  look  for  safety,  security,  guidance,  strength  and  vic- 
tory. Gradually  Congress  gave  him  unlimited  powers  ;  no 
king  ever  had  greater;  but  he  never  abused  them,  as  some 
great  leaders  of  the  world  have  done.  The  people  learned 
to  depend  upon  him  for  support  in  dark  times  and  for  wis- 
dom in  bright  times ;  and,  whenever  they  grew  impatient,  or 
fearful,  or  despondent,  they  looked  at  that  tall,  sad-faced, 
quiet,  patient,  determined,  noble  figure  and  felt  their  faith 
grow  strong  again  and  their  fear  subside. 

When  more  soldiers  were  needed,  he  called  for  them  and 
they  came  ;  when  more  money  was  needed,  he  asked  for  it 
and  it  came;  when  things  looked  dark  and  all  the  rest  of 
the  world  said  that  the  North  could  never  win  and  that  the 
American  Republic  would  end  in  failure,  Lincoln  said:  "We 
shall  win!"  and  the  people  believed  him  and  called  him 
"  Father  Abraham  "  and  "  Honest  Abe." 

When  you  boys  and  girls  have  something  to  do  that 
seems  to  you  hard  or  almost  impossible,  you  go  to  your 
father,  with  confidence  that  he  can  help  you  or  bring  the 
thing  about ;  and  your  father  can  generally  help  you  out.  It 
was  so  with  Lincoln.  He  was  the  father  of  the  people. 
They  learned  to  rely  upon  him,  to  have  faith  in  him,  to 
believe   that   he  would   carry  them   through.     And   he  did. 


i86     HO IV  THE  FLAT-BOATMAN  GUIDED  THE  SHIP  OF  STATE. 

Historians  now  —  those  who  study  all  the  moves  and  turns 
of  that  great  Civil  War  —  agree  that  it  ended  successfully 
because  Lincoln  was  at  the  head  of  things  and  that  he  never 
made  a  mistake. 

Is  it  not  wonderful,  when  you  think  of  this  man's  story, 
when  you  know,  as  you  now  do,  what  he  sprang  from,  how  lit- 
tle he  really  knew  of  government  or  war,  or  the  great  ques- 
tions and  acts  that  had  to  be  faced  and  decided,  that  such  a 
man  could  so  guide,  direct  and  save  a  great  nation  from 
destruction  ? 

Learn  from  him,  boys  and  girls,  patience,  kindliness,  cour- 
tesy, gentleness,  firmness,  faith,  hope,  courage,  purpose  and 
honor.  For,  all  of  these,  Abraham  Lincoln  possessed,  as  no 
other  man  in  all  the  world  had  them.  These  were  what 
kept  him  steadfast  to  the  end  and  enabled  this  marvellous 
man  to  guide  the  ship  of  state  through  stormy  seas  to  tri- 
umph, prosperity  and  peace. 


HOW  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  MADE  HIS  NAME  IMMORTAL.     187 


CHAPTER   XL 

HOW    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN    MADE    HIS    NAME    IMMORTAL. 

"X/OU  remember,  do  you  not,  how  Abraham  Lincoln  hated 
-■■  slavery  from  the  day  he  saw  the  slave  auction  in  New 
Orleans  ?  It  was  not  so  much  regard  for  the  black  man  as 
hatred  of  the  system,  that  raised  his  anger.  He  had  high 
ideas  of  freedom  and  what  it  had  done  for  him.  He  saw 
that  slavery  injured  alike  the  slave  and  the  master,  and  in 
one  of  his  great  speeches  he  declared  that  he  would  speak 
for  freedom  and  against  slavery,  as  long  as  the  constitution 
of  the  land  guaranteed  free  speech,  "  until  everywhere,  in 
this  broad  land,  the  sun  shall  shine  and  the  rain  shall  fall 
and  the  wind  shall  blow  upon  no  man  that  goes  forth  to 
unrequited  labor. 

As  I  have  told  you,  there  were  people,  long  before  the  war, 
who  favored  an  immediate  stopping  or  abolition  of  slavery  — 
hence  they  were  called  Abolitionists.  They  said  :  "  Slavery 
is  wrong !  therefore  it  must  be  stopped,  at  once."  They  did 
noble  and  brave  work  for  freedom,  with  voice  and  pen  ;  but 
they  were  not  always  wise  in  the  ways  by  which  they  would 
bring  about  the  end  they  had  in  view  ;  so,  for  years,  the 
name  of  Abolitionist  was  not  popular  with  the  people. 


188     HO  IF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  MADE  HIS  NAME  IMMORTAL. 

Other  men  and  women,  hating  slavery  just  as  much,  still 
wished  to  be  just.  They  said  the  slaveholders  took  their 
slaves  or  their  belief  in  slavery  from  those  who  went  before 
them.  It  would  not^  be  fair  to  strip  them  at  once  of  their 
property— even  though  that  property  were  in  men  and 
^  women.     We  must  destroy  slavery  gradually,  they  said. 

Through  most  of  his  life  Lincoln,  was  of  this  belief.  He 
was  bound  that  slavery  should  not  spread  any  further;  he 
used  all  his  influence  to  limit  it  to  certain  sections,  and,  finally, 
to  do  away  with  it,  altogether. 

So  he  fought  against  the  extension  of  slavery;  he  pro- 
tested against  the  free  states  giving  in  to  the  demands  of 
the  slave  states.  You  remember  how  he  introduced  such  a 
measure  when  he  first  wen^^o  the  Illinois  legislature.  He 
was  always  ready  to  defend  the  cause  of  the  runaway  slave; 
he  tried  to  lead  men  and  women  to  see  how  wrong  slavery  was 
and  how  much  better  off  the  republic  would  be  without  it. 

He  favored  what  is' called  gradual  emancipation.  He 
even  advocated  the  purchase  of  all  slaves  by  the  govern- 
ment and  then  setting  them  free;  so  that  those  who  owned 
them  should  not  be  losers  by  abolition. 

He  loved  the  Union  above  everything  else,  and  could 
not  bear  to  think  of  its  being  broken  or  split  into  two 
nations.  He  was  a  stout  defender  of  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States,  and  believed  that  it  should  be  followed 
out  to  the  letter.  I  told  you  of  the  first  "  piece  "  that  he 
wrote,  and  which  was  printed  in   the  newspaper.      It  was  a 


Harriet  Beecher  Siowe. 
Chailes  Sumner. 


NUThL)    AMLKICAN    ABOLITIONISTS. 

John  Brown, 


William  Lloyd  Garrison. 
John  G.   Whittier. 


HO  W  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  MADE  HIS  NAME  IMMORTAL.     191 

boyish,  but  earnest  defence  of  the  constitution.  That  devo- 
tion to  the  law  of  his  country  was  the  guiding  principle  of 
his  whole  life. 

So,  when  he  became  president,  while  he  hated  slavery, 
and  would  like  to  see  it  swept  out  of  existence,  he  knew 
that  the  Constitution  allowed  it  to  exist,  and  he  could  not 
see  his  way  clear  to  abolish  it.  He  declared  that  the  war 
was  not  being  fought  to  abolish  slavery,  but  to  save  the 
Union ;  but  he  was  also  certain  that  the  triumph  of  the 
Union  meant  the  downfall  of  slavery. 

Many  people  in  the  North  found  fault  with  the  president 
because  he  did  not  at  once  take  strong  measures  against 
slavery.  But  Lincoln  knew  what  was  right,  even  better  than 
they. 

He  knew  that  to  declare  the  slaves  free,  at  once,  would 
make  all  the  people  of  what  were  called  the  border  states  — 
that  is,  states  lying  between  the  North  and  South,  like  Mary- 
land and  Kentucky  —  hostile  to  the  Union;  and  he  intended 
to  keep  them  loyal. 

So  he  went  slowly;  and  when  the  great  editor,  Horace 
Greeley,  who  wished  to  bring  about  the  triumph  of  the 
Union,  but  was  impatient  of  slow  measures,  addressed  a 
letter  to  the  president,  demanding  that  the  slaves  be  made 
free  at  once,  Lincoln,  calm,  patient,  far-seeing,  determined, 
answered  in  words  that  showed  men  how  grand  and  brave 
and  patriotic  the  great  president  was,  and  how  he  stood  for 
the  rights  and  the  welfare  of  the  whole  people — the  Union. 


192     NO  IV  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  MADE  HIS  NAME  IMMORTAL. 

"  My  paramount  duty,"  he  said,  in  this  answer  to  Mr. 
Greeley,  "  is  to  save  the  Union,  and  not  either  to  destroy  or 
save  slavery.  If  I  could  save  the  Union  without  freeing 
any  slaves,  I  would  do  it ;  if  I  could  save  it  by  freeing  all 
the  slaves,  I  would  do  it ;  and  if  I  could  do  it  by  freeing 
some  and  leaving  others  alone,  I  would  also  do  that.  What  I 
do  about  slavery  and  the  colored  race,  I  do  because  I  believe 
it  helps  to  save  the  Union  ;  and  what  I  forbear,  I  forbear  be- 
cause I  do  not  believe  it  would  help  to  save  the  Union.  I 
shall  do  less,  whenever  I  shall  believe  what  I  am  doing  hurts 
the  cause ;  and  I  shall  do  more,  whenever  I  believe  doing 
more  will  help  the  cause.  .  .  I  have  stated  my  purpose 
according  to  my  views  of  official  duty,  and  I  intend  no  mod- 
ification of  my  oft-expressed  personal  wish  that  all  men 
everywhere  could  be  free." 

This  means,  you  see,  that  Lincoln  would  do,  not  what 
he  wanted  as  Abraham  Lincoln,  but  what  he  believed  to  be 
best  as  President  of  the  United  States.  That  is  a  hard 
thing  to  do,  boys  and  girls  —  to  separate  personal  desire 
from  the  general  good. 

But,  all  this  time,  Lincoln  saw  how  things  were  moving, 
and  felt  that  the  downfall  of  slavery  was  not  far  distant. 

He  was  waiting  for  the  proper  time  to  take  the  great 
step  he  had  in  mind.  He  took  it  not  a  moment  too  soon, 
nor  a  moment  too  late.  To  know  just  when  to  act  is  what 
makes  the  great  man. 

The  war  had  been  raging  for  nearly  two  years.     There 


A  "contraband." 


HOW  ABRAHAM  LINCCLJST MADE  HIS  NAME  IMMORTAL.     195 

were  defeats  and  victories;  there  were  dark  days  and  hopeful 
ones  ;  but  both  sides  were  determined  ;  they  were  "  clinched  " 
in  as  mighty  a  grapple  as  ever  Abraham  Lincoln,  the  cham- 
pion wrestler,  had  tugged  at,  when  he  was  a  boy. 

There  was  a  flush  of  rebel  triumph.  General  Lee  and 
the  Confederate  army  crossed  the  Potomac  and  invaded 
Maryland.  Washington  was  in  danger.  Everything  looked 
black  for  the  Union  cause.  Then  it  was,  that  Lincoln  made 
a  solemn  vow  to  God  that,  if  the  rebels  were  driven  back, 
he  would  follow  up  the  victory  by  declaring  the  slaves  free. 

This  was  not  so  much  a  vow,  such  as  the  knights  and 
kings  of  old  use  to  make,  promising  to  build  a  church  or  do 
something  as  payment  to  the  Lord,  if  they  could  be  victors 
or  escape  disaster.  It  was  a  wise  and  practical  decision. 
For  now,  the  President  saw  that  the  emancipation  of  the 
slaves  was  necessary  to  the  success  of  the  Union  arms. 

He  had  grown  into  the  idea  gradually.  As  you  know, 
he  hated  slavery ;  he  wished  to  see  it  abolished ;  but  he 
wished  this  to  be  done  lawfully  and  justly.  He  still  be- 
lieved in  the  statement  he  had  made  in  the  speech  that 
made  him  famous,  that  the  government  could  not  continue 
half  slave  and  half  free.  He  meant  to  have  it  all  free ;  but, 
just  how  to  accomplish  this,  was  the  problem  he  had  to 
solve. 

At  first,  he  had  consented  to  the  shrewd  decision  of  one 
of  the  Union  generals,  Butler,  who  said  that  if  slaves  were 
property,  the   same  as   horses  or  fodder,  they  could   be  set 


196     HO  IV  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  AIADE  HIS  NAME  LMMORTAL. 

down,  when  taken  by  the  Union  troops,  as  captured  war 
material,  or  what  is  called  "  contraband  of  war."  So  the 
darkies,  who  came  into  the  lines  of  the  Union  army,  were 
set  to  work  on  the  fortifications  and  were  called  "  contra- 
bands." 

Next,  Lincoln  favored  a  gradual  abolition  of  slavery, 
paying  slave-holders  who  were  loyal  to  the  government  the 
price  of  the  negroes  thus  set  free;  then,  he  declared  himself 
a  believer  in  what  was  called  the  colonization  scheme  — 
that  is,  sending  all  the  negroes  out  of  the  country,  and 
settling  them  in  some  section  of  South  America,  where  they 
could  make  a  nation  of  their  own  ;  neither  of  these  plans 
were  liked  by  the  people  of  the  border  states,  who  were 
loyal  to  the  government ;  so  Lincoln  made  a  further  step, 
by  advising  Congress  to  abolish  slavery  forever  in  the 
District  of  Columbia.  This  was  done,  and  the  president 
signed  the  act  gladly.  After  that,  he  advocated  arming 
the  negroes,  making  soldiers  of  them,  and  giving  freedom 
to  all  slaves  who  would  serve  as  Union  soldiers.  This 
became  a  law.  Soon  after,  another  act  was  passed  by 
Congress,  and  approved  by  the  president,  which  made 
slavery  illegal  in  all  the  territories  of  the  United  States  — 
that  is,  those  sections  not  yet  made  states. 

So,  you  see,  President  Lincoln,  step  by  step,  was  leading 
the  country  toward  that  final  abolition  of  slavery,  which  he 
now  saw  must,  some  day,  come  about. 

He  thought  the    question  all    out    carefully,  wrote    out 


THE   FIRST   DRAFT   OF  THE   EMANCIPATION    PROCLAMATION. 


HOW  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  MADE  HIS  NAME  IMMOIiTAL.     199 

what  is  called  "a  draft  "of  a  paper,  proclaiming  freedom  to 
all  slaves  within  the  rebel  lines.  It  is  stated  that  the  very 
first  draft  of  the  emancipation  proclamation  was  written  by 
President  Lincoln,  one  day,  as  he  was  sailing  down  the 
Potomac  River  on  a  steamboat  on  his  way  to  visit  the 
army. 

Whether  this  is  really  so  or  not,  it  is  certain  that  he 
wrote  out  his  proclamation  of  his  own  accord,  and  not  under 
any  advice  or  pressure  from  other  persons. 

At  last,  one  day  in  September,  1862,  the  president  called 
his  cabinet  together  and  told  them  what  he  had  decided  to 
do.  Then  he  drew  from  his  pocket  the  paper  he  had 
written  and  submitted  it  to  them  for  suggestions  and  opin- 
ions—  though  we  must  all  remember  that,  even  had  they 
then  been  opposed  to  it,  Lincoln  would  not  have  backed 
down. 

He  knew  that  the  day  of  action  had  arrived ;  he  could 
not  longer  waste  precious  time  trying  to  please  the  people 
of  the  border  states  or  those  within  the  rebel  lines.  He  felt 
certain  that  the  people  of  the  North  would  agree  with  him, 
and  that  something  final  must  be  done  to  show  the  world 
that  the  government  of  the  United  States  pledged  itself  not 
only  to  victory  but  to  freedom. 

So  at  last  the  great  step  v/as  taken.  On  the  twenty-sec- 
ond of  September,  1862,  the  emancipation  proclamation  was 
issued.  It  declared  that,  on  the  first  day  of  January,  1863, 
"  all  persons  held  as  slaves   within  any  state  or  part   of  a 


200     HO  W  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  MADE  HIS  NAME  IMMORTAL. 

state  in  rebellion  against  the  United  States  shall  be  thencE' 
FORWARD  AND  FOREVER  FREE,"  and  that  "  the  executive 
government  of  the  United  States,  including  the  military 
and  naval  authority  thereof,  will  recognize  and  maintain  the 
freedom  of  such  persons,  and  will  do  no  act  or  acts  to 
repress  such  persons,  or  any  of  them,  in  any  effort  they  may 
make  for  their  actual  freedom." 

It  was  done.  The  Emancipation  Proclamation  !  The 
telegraph  flashed  the  tidings  all  over  the  land.  Boys  ran 
through  the  city  streets  crying  the  news  in  "  Extras."  It  was 
read  with  eagerness  and  satisfaction.  The  North  hailed  the 
act  with  joy.  The  president  was  assured  that  the  nation 
approved  and  applauded  his  action.  The  war  took  a  new 
form.  It  was  fought  for  a  republic  of  freemen  —  the  preser- 
vation of  a  Union  without  slavery. 

The  final  issue  of  the  proclamation  was  made  as  an- 
nounced, on  the  first  day  of  January,  1863,  and  closed  with 
these  solemn  words:  "Upon  this  act,  sincerely  believed  to 
be  an  act  of  justice,  warranted  by  the  Constitution  upon 
military  necessity,  I  invoke  the  considerate  judgment  of 
mankind  and  the  gracious  favor  of  Almighty  God." 

Abraham  Lincoln  had  made  his  name  immortal.  He 
had  kept  the  oath  he  had  taken  before  the  auction  block 
in  New  Orleans ;  he  had  kept  the  vow  he  made  when 
victory  came  to  the  Union  arms.  From  that  day,  America 
was  indeed  "the  home  of  the  free,"  and  was  to  be  so,  forever 
and  ever. 


'BOYS    RAN    THRriUr.H    THE    CITY    STRFF.TS    CRYING    THE    NEWS    IN    'EXTRAS 


L 


WIfV  THE   PEOPLE    WOULD  NOT '' SWAP  HORSES."  203 

It  is  hard  for  you,  boys  and  girls,  to  understand  or  ap- 
preciate, now,  the  wisdom,  the  magnitude,  the  courage  or 
the  solemnity  of  this  great  act  of  emancipation. 

What  Washington  and  Jefferson  and  Franklin  and  all 
the  great  men  who  had  founded  and  builded  the  United 
States  of  America  had  earnestly  desired,  but  which  none 
of  them,  up  to  that  time,  had  dared  to  perform,  Lincoln 
had  dared.  This  man  of  the  people,  sprung  from  the 
people,  in  the  face  of  hostility,  of  armed  rebellion,  of 
fanaticism  on  one  side  and  timidity  on  the  other,  had 
wisely  seen  and  boldly  acted,  and,  by  a  stroke  of  his  pen, 
had  freed  a  race,  put  his  native  land  in  the  foremost  rank 
of  the  free  nations  of  the  earth,  gained  for  himself  the 
plaudits  of  mankind  and  secured  an  immortality  that  will 
cling  to  the  name  of  Abraham  Lincoln  so  long  as  the 
world  shall  last. 


CHAPTER    XIL 


WHY    THE    PEOPLE    WOULD    NOT   "  SWAP    HORSES.' 

"  I  "HE   Emancipation   Proclamation  did  not  end  the  war. 
-*-       There  were  yet  to  be   two  bloody  years   of   fighting, 
defeat,  anxiety  and  delay  before  the  final  triumph  came. 

There  were  dark  days  after  that  historic  first  of  January, 


204  Jf'Bi'   THE   PEOPLE    WOULD   NOT  ''SWAP  HORSES." 

1863.  The  President  had  faith  in  the  future;  but  the 
generals  in  command  of  his  armies  were  sometimes  not 
"  up  to  the  mark,"  and  occasioned  him  much  trouble  and 
annoyance. 

Especially  was  this  so  in  the  Army  of  the  Potomac, 
which  was  fighting  to  capture  the  city  of  Richmond,  in 
Virginia,  the  capital  of  the  Southern  Confederacy. 

President  Lincoln  insisted  upon  no  plan  of  his  own  for 
fightino-  the  battles  of  the  Union.  What  he  desired  was 
to  win  them.  While  he  studied  the  situation  carefully, 
and  proposed  lines  of  action,  he  preferred  to  leave  what 
was  called  the  plan  of  campaign  to  the  generals  in  com- 
mand. All  he  asked  of  them  was  to  do  something,  to  cap- 
ture Richmond,  to  overthrow  the  rebel  forces,  to  end  the 
war.  Things  moved  along  well  in  the  West.  But  in 
Virginia,  where  the  main  struggle  took  place,  matters 
went  too  slowly  to  suit  the  impatient  people  of  the  North, 
and  the  anxious,  but  ever-patient  president. 

I  have  told  you  that  old  General  Scott,  who  was  in  com- 
mand when  the  war  begun,  felt  obliged  to  give  up  the 
command  because  he  was  too  old  for  active  service. 
General  McClellan,  who  succeeded  him,  was  a  fine  officer 
to  build  fortifications  and  drill  soldiers ;  but  he  was 
timid  in  advancing;  he  demanded  too  much  before  he 
would  engage  in  battle,  and,  instead  of  helping  the  pres- 
ident, really  hindered  him  by  complaints  and  demands  and 
objections,  until   even   the    patient    president  saw   that  sue- 


IVffV  THE   PEOPLE   WOULD  NOT  ''SWAP  HORSES:'  205 

cess  depended  upon  a  change  of  generals,  and  he  put 
another  leader  in  command. 

Meantime,  in  the  West,  America's  greatest  soldier  was 
rising  into  prominence;  fighting  successfully,  and  drawing 
toward  himself  the  hope  and  faith  of  the  people.  So,  when 
General  Grant  had  driven  the  Confederate  armies  from  the 
field,  captured  Vicksburg,  a  most  important  point,  and, 
with  the  help  of  the  brave  Admiral  Farragut,  opened  the 
Mississippi  River  to  the  sea,  the  president  did  what  all  men 
felt  that  he  would  do,  in  time.  He  made  Grant  general-in- 
chief  of  all  the  armies  of  the  United  States,  and  gave  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac  into  his  especial  charge. 

These  matters  occupied  three  years  of  the  war.  During 
all  that  time,  the  great  president  was  in  Washington,  bur- 
dened with  so  many  duties,  so  many  anxieties  and  so  many 
cares  that  it  was  making  an  old  man  of  him  before  his  time ; 
it  was  furrowing  his  homely  face  with  wrinkles ;  it  was 
wearing  out  his  life,  his  strength,  his  heart  —  everything 
but  his  will,  his  hope  and  his  faith. 

Everyone  criticised  him  —  friends  and  foes  alike.  Lit- 
tle minds  that  could  not  appreciate  his  greatness  of  soul, 
called  him  hard  names  ;  impetuous  people  who  would  not 
wait  to  weigh  all  the  necessities,  called  him  slow  and  stupid; 
men  with  plans  and  schemes  which  would  have  wrecked 
rather  than  saved  the  Union  cause,  were  angry  because  he 
would  not  do  as  they  wished ;  people  who  wanted  office  or 
favors,  almost  worried  the  life  out  of  him ;  jealous  people 


2o6  WJir  THE  FEOPLE   WOULD  NOT  '' SWAP  HORSES." 

carried  all  sorts  of  tales  to  him  ;  those  who  wished  for  peace 
and  those  who  wanted  a  still  more  bitter  war  cried  out  against 
him ;  friends  who  should  have  stood  true,  deserted  him ; 
foes  who  wished  his  overthrow,  laid  traps  for  him — there 
never  was,  in  all  the  history  of  great  and  noble  and  mighty 
leaders  in  the  world's  progress  one  more  beset,  maligned  or 
worried  than  Abraham  Lincoln  in  those  years  of  war,  which 
were  a  struggle  for  the  very  life  and  existence  of  the  proud 
Republic  of  the  United  States. 

But,  through  it  all,  Abraham  Lincoln  stood  firm.  With 
his  hand  on  the  tiller  he  steered  the  ship  of  state  cautiously, 
securely,  safely  through  the  breakers. 

There  he  stood  at  his  post,  serene,  patient,  uncomplain- 
ing; unmoved  by  insult,  criticism  or  assault;  a  man  abso- 
lutely to  be  relied  upon  to  do  the  right  thing,  always.  No 
other  man  in  all  the  world  could  have  filled  his  place  so 
well,  labored  so  persistently  or  won  success  so  nobly.  He, 
after  all,  was  the  Great  Captain. 

In  the  midst  of  the  conflict  his  term  of  office  as  president 
expired.  Who  should  succeed  him  ?  Who,  in  all  the  land, 
was  able  to  take  up  his  work?  So  men  asked  each  other; 
and,  as  the  time  drew  near,  those  who  most  bitterly  opposed 
him  set  up  other  men  as  candidates  for  president. 

Lincoln  never  made  any  secret  of  the  fact  that  he  wished 
to  be  president  a  second  time.  Office-seeking,  boys  and 
girls,  when  done  from  selfish  motives  is  contemptible.  But 
there  are  times  when  he  who  seeks  an  office  may  be  consid- 


Sherman. 
Farragut. 


DEFENDERS   OF  THE   UNION. 
Grant. 


Sheridan. 
McClellan. 


WHY  THE  FEOFLE   WOULD  NOT  ''SWAT  HORSES."  209 

ered  a  hero,  I  have  known  men  who  sought  and  accepted  an 
office  simply  for  the  good  they  could  do  in  it,  or  because  they 
felt  it  their  duty  to  undertake  a  certain  work,  even  at  the 
risk  of  being  called  "  office-seekers." 

It  was  this  spirit  that  animated  Abraham  Lincoln.  He 
had  accepted  a  great  trust;  he  had  attempted  a  great  work; 
he  knew,  better  than  any  other  man,  what  was  needed  to 
carry  that  work  to  final  success. 

He  had  no  hesitation  in  saying  so.  Abraham  Lincoln 
was  always  truthful.  He  knew  that  a  change  of  presidents  — 
even  if  the  new  president  should  be  of  the  party  in  power  — 
would  be  unwise.  As  he  put  it,  in  the  quaint  way  he  had  of 
speaking  in  homely  phrases  that  appealed  to  the  people,  "it 
isn't  safe  to  swap  horses  when  you  are  crossing  a  stream." 

The  people  knew  this,  too.  Abraham  Lincoln  was 
re-nominated,  with  scarcely  a  dissenting  vote,  in  the  National 
Convention  at  Baltimore;  and  in  November,  1864,  he  was 
re-elected  president  of  the  United  States,  by  212  out  of  the 
233  electoral  votes  cast,  or  what  was  a  majority  of  over  four 
hundred  thousand  on  the  popular  vote.  The  people  had 
decided  not  to  "  swap  horses." 

One  year  before,  on  the  nineteenth  of  November,  1863, 
Lincoln  made  what  will  probably  always  be  considered  the 
greatest  speech  of  his  life  and  one  of  the  few  great  speeches 
of  the  world. 

It  was  very  short  —  267  words  in  all;  but  every  word 
counted.     It  was  an   occasion  of    especial  interest   to   him. 


210  IVHV  THE   PEOPLE    WOULD    MOP  ''SWAP  HORSES." 

Only  four  months  before,  upon  those  Pennsylvania  hills  and 
meadows  that  have  now  become  historic,  was  fought  and 
won  the  battle  that  was  the  turning  point  of  the  war  —  the 
battle  of  Gettysburg.  The  field  was  to  be  dedicated  as  a 
resting  place,  a  national  burying  ground  for  those  brave  sol- 
diers of  the  Union  who  fell  in  the  fearful  fight.  To  such  a 
man  as  Abraham  Lincoln,  the  place  and  the  occasion  had  a 
peculiar  influence.  As  a  result,  this  brief  but  glorious  ora- 
tion came  straight  from  the  speaker's  heart ;  and  to-day,  all 
over  the  world,  it  is  esteemed  of  men,  as  Lincoln's  master- 
piece. But  he  never  thought  of  it  as  an  "  oration."  He 
simply  called  it  "a  little  talk." 

I  asked  you,  some  pages  back,  when  I  told  you  of  Lin- 
coln's first  public  speech,  to  set  these  two  side  by  side,  and 
see  what  the  years  had  made  of  Abraham  Lincoln  —  a 
thinker,  an  orator,  a  prophet. 

To-day,  that  Gettysburg  address  is  shrined  in  the  heart 
of  the  nation  as  one  of  America's  classics  —  that  is,  an 
utterance  that  will  never  die.  Let  every  boy  and  girl  in  the 
land — North  and  South,  alike  —  become  familiar  with  its 
simple,  but  noble  phrases  ;  for,  in  the  centuries  to  come,  it 
will  stand  alone  —  unique,  grand,  inspired. 

Read  it  again,  all  of  you.     Here  it  is: 

"  Fourscore  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers  brought 
forth  on  this  continent  a  new  nation,  conceived  in  liberty, 
and  dedicated  to  the  proposition  that  all  men  are  created 
equal.      Now  we  are  engaged  in  a  great  civil  war,  testing 


WHY  THE   PEOPLE    WOULD   NOT  "SWAP  HOPSES."  211 

whether  that  nation,  or  any  nation  so  conceived  and  so  ded- 
icated, can  long  endure.  We  are  met  on  a  great  battlefield 
of  that  war.  We  have  come  to  dedicate  a  portion  of  that 
field  as  a  final  resting-place  for  those  who  here  gave  their 
lives  that  that  nation  might  live.  It  is  altogether  fitting  and 
proper  that  we  should  do  this.  But,  in  a  larger  sense,  we 
cannot  dedicate  —  we  cannot  consecrate — we  cannot  hallow 
—  this  ground.  The  brave  men,  living  and  dead,  who  strug- 
gled here,  have  consecrated  it  far  above  our  poor  power  to 
add  or  detract. 

"  The  world  will  little  note,  nor  long  remember  what  we 
say  here;  but  it  can  never  forget  what  they  did  here.  It 
is  for  us,  the  living,  rather,  to  be  dedicated  here  to  the  unfin- 
ished work  which  they  who  fought  here  have  thus  far  so  nobly 
advanced.  It  is  rather  for  us  to  be  here  dedicated  to  the 
great  task  remaining  before  us — that,  from  these  honored 
dead,  we  take  increased  devotion  to  that  cause  for  which 
they  gave  the  last  full  measure  of  devotion ;  that  we  here 
highly  resolve  that  these  dead  shall  not  have  died  in  vain ; 
that  this  nation,  under  God,  shall  have  a  new  birth  of  free- 
dom ;  and  that  government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  for 
the  people,  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth." 

With  Grant  in  command  of  the  army  of  the  Potomac 
and  in  control  of  all  the  armies  of  the  Union,  steadily  and 
persistently  fighting  on  a  plan  that  knew  no  such  word  as 
fail,  and  with  a  determination  to  "  fight  it  out "  to  the  bitter 
end,  the  close  of  the  rebellion  gradually  drew  near.     At  once, 


212  l-VJiy  THE  PEOPLE   WOULD  NOT  ''SWAP  HORSES." 

Lincoln's  dear  vision  saw  this;  and,  with  entire  confidence  in 
the  man  he  had  placed  at  the  head  of  the  armies,  he  did  all 
in  his  power  to  help  on  the  movements  that  should  decide 
the  final  wrestle  between  the  North  and  South. 

But,  though  he  had  faith  in  Grant's  ability  as  general  and 
commander,  his  cares  were  not  lessened,  his  anxiety  was  not 
abated.  He  watched  even  more  eagerly  for  news  from  the 
front;  he  had  to  raise  both  men  and  money  to  carry  on  the 
war;  great  troubles  burdened  his  soul ;  great  problems  filled 
his  mind.  It  was  the  old  experience  of  his  days  of  wrest- 
ling come  again.  He  gathered  himself  together  for  the  final 
tussle,  and  put  heart  and  mind  and  strength  into  the  closing 
fall. 

When  certain  officious,  but  well-meaning  men  on  both 
sides  wished  for  a  conference  for  a  possible  peace,  he  did 
not  say  No  ;  instead,  he  welcomed  anything  that  would  bring 
peace  with  honor  —  and  an  undivided  Union  ;  he  even  went 
himself  to  the  conference  at  Fortress  Monroe  and  talked 
with  the  men  who  represented  the  rebel  government.  But 
his  will  was  as  unyielding,  his  determination  as  strong,  his 
desires  as  clear  as  ever.  He  would  only  proceed  on  General 
Grant's  terms  of  unconditional  surrender ;  the  conference 
accomplished  nothing,  as  he  knew  it  could  not ;  but  it  did 
show  the  people  that  the  man  at  the  helm  was  one  who 
could  not  in  any  way  be  turned  from  his  duty,  and  their  con- 
fidence in  his  ability  became  stronger  than  ever.  They  saw 
that  they  had  made  no  mistake  when  they  refused  to  "  swap 


'  FROM   THE   PRESIDENT  ! ' 


tVJiy  THE  PEOPLE   WOULD  NOT  ''SWAP  HORSESr  215 

horses,"  or  put  another  man  in  the  place  of  the  one  directed 
of  God  to  carry  out  to  final  success  the  cause  of  liberty  and 
union. 

In  the  midst  of  all  these  mighty  events  came  the  day  of 
Lincoln's  second  inauguration  as  President  of  the  United 
States  —  the  fourth  of  March,  1865. 

It  was  a  raw  and  unpromising  March  day;  but  as  the 
hour  for  the  inauguration  approached,  the  storm-clouds 
cleared  away,  and,  as  the  president  arose  to  deliver  his 
brief  inaugural  address,  the  sun  broke  through  the  vanish- 
ing clouds,  and  a  strain  of  glorious  sunlight  fell  upon  the 
speaker.     It  was  a  significant  omen. 

No  less  significant  was  the  inaugural  address.  It  is  one 
of  the  shortest  in  the  history  of  presidential  inaugurals. 
But  it  will  ever  be  remembered  for  its  noble  utterances,  its 
thankful  recognition  of  success,  its  confident  note  of  victory, 
and,  above  all,  for  the  immortal  words  of  affection,  devotion 
and  kindliness  with  which  it  closed.  You  know  them,  of 
course : 

"  With  malice  toward  none ;  with  charity  for  all ;  with 
firmness  in  the  right,  as  God  gives  us  to  see  the  right,  let 
us  strive  on  to  finish  the  work  we  are  in  ;  to  bind  up  the 
nation's  wounds;  to  care  for  him  who  shall  have  borne  the 
battle,  and  for  his  widow  and  his  orphan  —  to  do  all  which 
may  achieve  and  cherish  a  just  and  lasting  peace  among 
ourselves  and  with  all  nations." 

It    is    a    noble    speech  —  that    whole    second    inaugural. 


2i6  WHY  THE  PEOPLE   WOULD  NOT  ''SWAP  HORSES." 

Read  it,  I  beg,  boys  and  girls  alike;  and  as  you  recall  the 
words  of  praise  that,  as  I  told  you,  the  western  lawyer  gave 
to  Lincoln's  first  "  piece  "  that  was  published  in  the  village 
paper,  in  the  old  Indiana  days,  see  how  well  that  verdict  fits 
this  last  of  his  public  "  pieces  "  — "  The  world  can't  beat  it !  " 
I  doubt  if,  in  the  whole  history  of  oratory,  the  world  can  really 
"beat,"  in  composition,  sympathy,  sentiment  and  simplicity, 
this  matchless  second  inaugural  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

Does  it  not  seem  as  if  this  man  of  noble  soul,  this  man 
who  was  absolutely  "  with  malice  toward  none,"  should  have 
been  spared  to  show  the  people  he  had  so  wondrously  di- 
rected, how  best  "to  bind  up  the  nation's  wounds?"  It 
seems  so,  no  doubt.  But  God  knew  best.  He  knew  that  it 
needed  the  crowning  act  of  sacrifice  to  show  the  world, 
which  had  scarcely  begun  to  appreciate  the  real  greatness  of 
Abraham  Lincoln,  how  mighty  a  soul  had  been  sent  to  this 
nation  in  its  hour  of  deepest  need.  History  is  full  of  such 
sacrifices,  but  never  one  more  notable  than  this. 

The  war  came  to  an  end.  The  armies  of  the  Union 
crushed  out  the  great  rebellion,  and  peace  came  to  the 
troubled  land.  Lincoln  stood  in  the  captured  capital  of 
the  Confederacy,  toward  which,  through  all  those  months 
and  years  of  struggle,  his  eyes  had  turned  in  desire  and  de- 
termination. Walking  the  streets  of  Richmond,  the  Eman- 
cipator had  heard  the  cries  of  thanksgiving  from  the  race 
to  whom  he  had  given  freedom ;  in  sight  of  the  melting 
ranks   of  the  army  of   opposition,  he  had  clasped   hands   in 


WJiy  THE  PEOPLE   WOULD   NOT  ''SWAP  HORSES." 


217 


joy  and  gratitude  with  the  great  general  who  had  won  the 
final  triumph.  He  knew  that  the  war  was  over.  He  knew 
that  the  Union  had  been  saved.     His  mission  was  done. 

His  heart  was  full  of  love  for  the  vanquished;  his 
thoughts  \vere  bent  on  how  best  to  make  all  Americans 
brothers  once  more.  From  every  part  of  the  land  came 
praise    and 


lation  that  the  end 
had  been  reached,  and 
that,  to  him,  were  due 
the  thanks  of  his  coun- 
trymen for  a  nation 
reunited  and  a  home- 
land saved  for  free- 
dom. 

Crowds  stormed 
the  White  House,  wild 
with  joy  and  pride. 
Again  and  again,  they 
called    for    the    presi- 


TWO    FAMOUS    MEN. 

Liucoln  and  Grant  in  JVas/iini^/on. 


dent ;  and,  from  the  central  window,  above  the  noble  entrance 
to  that  home  of  our  presidents,  Lincoln  made  his  last  public 
speech  —  that  one  beginning,  "We  meet  this  evening,  not  in 
sorrow,  but  in  gladness  of  heart."  The  future  looked  bright 
to  him,  at  last ;  and,  with  joy  and  comfort  in  his  patient  heart, 
he  said  to  his  wife  :  "  We  have  had  a  hard  time  together  since 
we 'came  to  Washington;  but  now  the  war  is  over,  and,  with 


2i8  llJ/y  THE  FEOJ'LE   WOULD  NOT  "SIFAT  HOJiSES:' 

God's  blessing  upon  us,  we  may  hope  for  four  years  of  hap- 
piness. Then,  we  will  go  back  to  Illinois  and  pass  the 
remainder  of  our  lives  in  peace." 

How  differently  that  journey  back  to  Illinois  was  made, 
you  know  too  well. 

On  the  night  of  the  fourteenth  of  April,  1865;  in  the 
theatre  to  which,  because  the  people  wished  to  see  him,  he 
had  gone,  accompanied  by  his  wife  and  two  young  friends  ; 
while  his  mind  was  easy,  his  heart  full  of  love  and  peace,  and 


THE   LAST   SPEECH. 
"  We  meet  not  in  sorrtrw,  but  m  gladness  of  heart.  "^^ 


his  thoughts  given  to  how  best  he  could  smooth  from  the 
land  the  scars  and  wounds  of  war  —  the  end  came. 

One  to  whom  he  had  done  no  ill ;  one  who  had,  against 
this  great  and  royal  soul,  no  personal  complaint  or  any  cause 
for  revenge  —  a  thoughtless,  ambitious,  conceited  and  hair- 
brained  fanatic  named  John  Wilkes  Booth  —  shot  down  the 


THE   ASSASSINATION    OF   ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 


(April  14,  1865.1 


IVIfV  THE   PEOPLE   WOULD  NOT  ''SWAP  HORSES."  221 

president,  as  he  sat  enjoying  the  play  ;  and,  at  half-past  seven, 
on  the  morning  of  Saturday,  the  fifteenth  of  April,  the  great 
president  closed  his  eyes  forever.  Abraham  Lincoln  was 
dead. 

Such  of  us  as  lived  in  those  stirring  times  may  forget, 
as  the  years  go  by,  many  things  of  note  and  importance  that 
happened  in  those  years  of  war.  But  no  one  will  ever  for- 
get the  great  wave  of  indignation,  sorrow,  amazement  and 
despair  that  swept  over  the  land  when  the  sad  news  was  told. 
On  the  same  crowded  city  street  where,  four  years  before,  I 
had  as  a  schoolboy,  seen  the  living  president  go  southward 
to  enter  upon  his  duties,  I  watched  again  the  silent  proces- 
sion, the  eight  black  horses,  the  sombre  catafalque  trapped 
with  nodding  plumes,  beneath  which  lay  the  body  of  the 
martyr,  stilled  in  death,  borne  westward  to  his  final  resting 
place. 

Along  the  same  route  by  which  he  had  first  come  to 
Washington  to  assume  the  great  duties  to  which  the  people 
had  called  him,  the  dead  president  was  borne.  Bells  tolled, 
cannons  boomed,  great  throngs  stood  uncovered  and  mute, 
in  sun  and  rain, as  the  funeral  train  rolled  on;  in  great  cities 
the  people,  in  tears  and  silence,  filed  past  the  dead  form  of 
the  man  who  had  done  so  much  for  them  and  for  the  wodjd ; 
then,  in  the  western  town,  where  so  much  of  his  life  had  been 
spent,  in  pleasant  Oak  Ridge  Cemetery,  just  outside  the  city 
of  Springfield  in  Illinois,  the  great  captain  was  laid  to  rest. 
His  life-work  was  done. 


'^ 


222  M^HY  THE  PEOPLE   WOULD  NOT  ''SWAP  HORSES." 

It  was  a  sad  day  for  America  ;  and  yet  it  was  a  glorious 
one.  For  his  was  a  death  that  cemented  anew,  as  no  other 
occasion  could,  the  people  who  for  years  had  been  divided ; 
now,  thanks  to  the  great  man  who  had  died  for  his  fellow- 
men,  the  Republic  was  to  move  steadily  forward,  reunited, 
reconsecrated  and  renewed,  to  a  future  and  a  grandeur  that 
this  great  man  foresaw,  and  freely  gave  his  life  to  assure.  In 
all  the  history  of  the  world,  boys  and  girls,  there  has  been  no 
nobler  life,  no  grander  death,  no  surer  immortality  than  that 
of  Abraham  Lincoln,  the  savior  of  his  country. 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  THE   AMERICAN.  223 


CHAPTER    XIII. 

ABRAHAM    LINCOLN    THE    AMERICAN. 

T  HAVE  not  attempted  in  this  story  of  the  martyr-presi- 
-*-  dent  to  introduce  or  explain  grave  political  questions,  to 
tell  of  generals  or  statesmen,  or  to  speak  of  battles  and  cam- 
paigns. Of  all  these  you  may  read  in  any  history  of  the 
United  States ;  and,  when  you  are  older,  you  must  read  for 
yourselves  some  one  of  the  excellent  lives  of  Lincoln  to 
which  this  story  stands  only  as  an  introduction. 

But  I  have  tried  to  show  you  what  Abraham  Lincoln 
was  —  a  man  sprung  from  the  people,  working  his  way  from 
poverty  to  fame,  from  a  little  log  cabin  beside  a  Kentucky 
stream  to  the  stately  White  House  in  Washington.  You 
have  read  of  his  trials  and  his  troubles,  his  desires  and  his 
drawbacks,  his  determination,  his  pluck  and  his  ambition. 
You  are  not  to  think  of  him  as  a  man  without  faults ;  for  he 
had  them  —  but  he  rose  above  them.  All  his  life,  before  the 
year  1858,  was  a  preparation  for  the  seven  years  of  states- 
manship, leadership  and  greatness  that  made  his  work 
enduring  and  his  name  immortal. 

I  wish  you  to  think  of  him  not  as  a  marble  statue,  a 
thing  to  regard  with  awe;  but  as  a  man,  a  being  to  love. 


224 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  THE  AMERICAN. 


And  children  did  love  him.  His  life  is  filled  with  little 
incidents  that  show  his  aiYection  for  children.  It  is  this 
part  of  his  noble  nature  that  made  him  so  full  of  sympathy 
and  tenderness  that  he  could  not  say  No  to  a  petition  for 
leniency,  life  or  pardon,    and   has   linked,  to  his   fame  as  a 


'  WELL,    GRACE,     YOU    SEE    I'VE    LET    MY    WHISKERS    GROW,"    HE    SAID. 


leader  in  a  mighty  war,  his  forgiveness,  alike  to  those  who 
had  fought  against  the  Union  he  adored,  and  to  those  unfor- 
tunates whom  the  demands  of  war  would  have  punished 
with  death,  but  for  this  great-hearted  man's  tenderness  and 
sympathy. 

From  the  days  when  he  rocked  the  babies  to  sleep  in  the 
humble  log  cabins  of  his  acquaintances,  to  the  days  when  he 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  THE   AMERICAN.  225 

romped  with  his  own  children  in  the  White  House,  his 
regard  for  children  was  ever  noticeable.  All  his  early  pict- 
ures show  him  beardless ;  all  his  pictures  after  his  election 
give  him  a  beard.  That  beard  was  due  to  the  suggestion 
of  a  little  girl  in  New  York  state;  having  seen  and  heard 
Mr.  Lincoln  in  the  days  before  the  war,  when  he  was  travel- 
ing and  speaking  in  the  east,  she  thought  a  beard  would 
greatly  improve  his  looks,  and  wrote  to  tell  him  so.  He 
took  the  hint  kindly,  as  he  always  did,  and  when  on  his  way 
to  the  White  House  as  president,  his  train  stopped  at  the 
village  where  Grace  lived.  He  asked  if  Grace  were  in  the 
throng  at  the  depot.  She  was,  of  course.  For  she  greatly 
admired  Mr.  Lincoln.  She  was  brought  forward  and  Mr. 
Lincoln  said  :  "  Well,  Grace ;  you  see  I  have  let  my  whisk- 
ers grow  for  you."  Then  he  took  her  hands,  bent  down 
and  kissed  her,  and  Grace  was  a  happy  little  girl,  you  may 
be  sure. 

Once,  a  country  boy,  who  had  come  to  Boston  to  begin 
the  world,  could  not  withstand  temptation,  and  stole  money 
from  the  letters  that  he  took  to  or  from  the  post-ofifice.  He 
was  found  out,  arrested,  and  sent  to  prison.  But  some 
tender-hearted  people  interested  themselves  in  the  boy  and 
applied  for  his  pardon,  believing  that  if  he  had  another 
chance  he  would  be  a  better  boy.  The  pardon  was  pre- 
sented to  the  president,  who,  in  the  funny  way  he  had,  said 
if  the  petition  were  true,  it  would  seem  as  if  there  were  not 
many    such    boys    as    this   one,  outside    the    sunday-school. 


226 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  THE   AMERICAN. 


For,  you  know,  a  petition  for  pardon  always  dwells  on  the 
good  qualities  of  the  one  to  be  pardoned.  Then,  growing 
serious,  he  asked  the  boy's  father  what  would  be  done  if  his 
son  were  released.  The  father  replied  that  the  boy  had  had 
quite  enough  of  the  city,  and  would  gladly  go  back  to  the 

farm.  At  once,  the  pre- 
sident signed  the  pardon, 
and  the  boy  was  set  free. 
One  day,  a  little  boy 
of  twelve  slipped  into 
the  president's  room,  un- 
noticed, in  the  crowd  of 
senators,  and  represent- 
atives, and  generals  and 
politicians,  who  were 
crowding  for  an  audi- 
ence. But  the  president 
noticed  him. 

"Who  is  this  little 
boy  ?  "  he  asked  pleas- 
antly. 

There  was  not  a  sena- 
tor, nor  a  politician,  nor 
a  general  in  the  room  who  could  tell;  but  the  boy,  plucking 
up  courage,  said  he  was  "  a  good  little  boy  "  who  had  come 
to  Washington  to  get  a  situation  as  page  in  the  House  of 
Representatives — you  know,  small  boys  are  used  as  messen- 


'WHO   IS  THE   LITTLE   BOY?"   HE   ASKED. 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  THE   AMERICAN.  227 

gers  in  Congress.  The  bothered  president,  his  mind  full  of 
important  affairs,  told  the  little  fellow,  kindly,  that  the  presi- 
dent did  not  appoint  pages,  but  that  he  must  see  the  head 
doorkeeper  of  the  House  of  Representatives.  The  boy, 
however,  evidently  did  not  intend  to  let  go  of  the  president 
who,  so  he  supposed,  was  head  of  everything,  and  had  the 
say.  So  he  again  told  the  president  that  he  was  a  good  boy ; 
and,  in  proof,  he  drew  from  his  pocket  a  recommendation, 
signed  by  his  pastor  and  the  leading  men  of  his  town  ;  he  told 
the  president,  too,  that  his  mother  was  a  widow  and  that  the 
appointment  would  be  a  great  help  to  her.  Then  Mr.  Lin- 
coln, smiling  down  at  the  little  fellow,  took  the  applicant's 
letter  of  recommendation  and  wrote  on  the  back  of  it :  "  If 
Captain  Goodnow  (the  head  doorkeeper)  can  give  this  'good 
little  boy'  a  place  he  will  oblige  A.  Lincoln."  The  boy  got 
the  place. 

The  president  was  very  fond  of  his  own  boys.  One  had 
died  in  Springfield,  before  Mr.  Lincoln  was  president,  and 
the  father  had  always  tender  memories  of  the  boy  he  had 
lost.  Three  went  with  him  to  the  White  House  —  Robert, 
aged  eighteen,  Willie,  ten,  and  Thomas,  or  "  Tad  "  as  he  was 
called,  a  bright  little  fellow  of  eight.  In  the  very  darkest 
days  of  the  war-time,  in  February,  1862,  Willie  died,  to  the 
great  grief  of  his  father  and  mother.  Robert  was  in  college 
and,  after  he  graduated,  went  to  the  war.  But  "  Tad  "  lived 
in  the  White  House  all  the  time,  and  a  book  could  be  writ- 
ten about   his   experiences,  his    doings  and  his  pranks.     He 


228 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN  THE   AMERICAN. 


was  full  of  fun,  and  Lincoln  loved  him  dearly.  It  was 
"Tad  "  who  could  cheer  him  up  in  days  of  gloom  or  when 
he  was  most  worried  or  troubled  ;  and  the  burdened  president 
was  never  so  busy  or  occupied  that   he   could  not  stop  for  a 

word  or  a  frolic  with 
his  boy.  At  the  very 
end  of  the  war,  when 
men  were  jubilant 
\\\\.\\  victory,  and 
some  were  vindic- 
tive toward  the  con- 
quered, Mr.  Lincoln 
in  a  speech  said : 
"What  shall  we  do 
with  the  rebels  ? " 
One  man  cried, "  hang" 
them;"  but  Tad,  who 
\\"as  at  his  father's 
elbow,  said,  "  hang 
on  to  them."  "  Tad's 
cfot  it,"  said  Mr.  Lin- 
coin ;  "  he's  right. 
We'll  hang  on  to  them,"  smiling  at  the  little  fellow's  desire 
for  clemencv.  Do  you  remember  the  character  of  Mr. 
Great-Heart  in  Bunyan's  wonderful  story  of  the  "  Pilgrim's 
Progress?"  That  was  Abraham  Lincoln.  His  great  heart 
held  in  it  patience,  courage,  determination,  sympathy  and  love. 


"TAD       AND   HIS   FATHER. 


"  MY    BOY,    MY    BILL    IS    A    LARGE    ONE,"    SAID    THE    PRESIDENT, 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  THE   AMERICAN. 


231 


^  Defeat  could  not  subdue  him ;  impatience  could  not  move 
him;  criticism  could  not  turn  him  from  his  purpose.  He 
saw  what  was  to  be  done  and  he  stood  upright  and  sturdy 
in  the  path  he  had  marked  out,  fighting  gallantly  to  the  end. 
But  distress  in  others  always  affected  him.  He  could  be 
stern  if  need  be,  though  always  just;  but  if  he  ever  wavered 
at  all,  it  was  when  some  poor  fellow's  life  was  in  danger. 

"  Go  away,  Swett," 
he  said  to  an  old 
friend,  who  called  on 
him  in  the  White 
House.  "To-morrow 
is  butcher-day.  I 
must  go  through 
these  papers  and  see 
if  I  cannot  find  some 
excuse  to  let  these 
poor  fellows  off ; "  and 
the  tender-hearted 
president  turned  to 
the  pile  of  papers 
which  were  the  death- 
warrants  of  soldiers 
who  had  failed  in  their  duty;  not  because  he  wished  to  shirk 
the  evidence,  but  to  find  one  single  loophole  that  would 
give  any  of  them  a  chance  for  life  through  pardon.  "  The 
man  must  not  be  shot,  Mr.  Lincoln,"  cried  the  friend  of  a 


THE   LINCOLN    MONUMENT  AT   SPRINGFIELD,   ILL. 
{Dedicated  October  15,  1S74.) 


232  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  THE  AMERICAN. 

recreant  soldier,  whom  Stanton,  the  just,  but  stern  war-secre- 
tary would  not  pardon.  "  Well,"  said  the  president,  "  I  don't 
believe  shooting  will  do  him  any  good.  Give  me  that  pen," 
and  the  pardon  was  granted. 

The  story  of  William  Scott,  "  the  sleeping  sentry,"  is  one 
of  the  best  known  among  all  these  tales  of  Lincoln's  sym- 
pathy. Perhaps  you  have  read  it.  William  Scott  had 
marched  all  day  and  then  volunteered  to  stand  as  sentry,  at 
night,  in  place  of  a  sick  comrade.  He  was  found  asleep  on 
his  post.  He  was  courtmartialed  and  sentenced  to  be  shot. 
Friends  tried  to  save  his  life  and  went  to  Mr.  Lincoln  with 
the  story.  He  heard  it  and  made  up  his  mind  to  save  the 
boy's  life.  He  was  afraid  to  trust  another  with  the  message 
and  went  himself  to  see  the  prisoner,  who  was  under  guard 
at  Washington.  Lincoln  entered  the  tent  where  Scott  was 
confined,  talked  with  him  of  his  home  on  the  Vermont  farm, 
his  school,  his  mother.  Then  he  said  :  "  My  boy,  look  me 
in  the  face.  You  are  not  going  to  be  shot  to-morrow.  I  am 
going  to  trust  you  and  send  you  back  to  your  regiment. 
How  are  you  going  to  pay  me  ?  " 

Young  Scott  was  surprised,  overjoyed,  but  worried.  He 
did  not  know  how  be  could  pay  Mr.  Lincoln.  A  president 
would  need  a  big  fee,  he  thought.  And  when,  finally,  he 
said  he  thought  the  boys  would  club  together,  and  perhaps 
they  could  raise  five  or  six  hundred  dollars,  the  great  presi- 
dent put  his  hands  on  the  lad's  shoulders  and  said :  "  My 
boy,  my  bill   is  a  large  one.     Your  friends   cannot   pay  it. 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  THE   AMERICAN.  233 

There  is  only  one  man  in  all  the  world  who  can  pay  it,  and 
his  name  is  William  Scott.  If,  from  this  day,  William  Scott 
does  his  duty,  so  that  if  I  were  there  when  he  comes  to  die, 
he  can  look  me  in  the  face  and  say,  '  I  have  kept  my  prom- 
ise, I  have  done  my  duty  as  a  soldier,'  then,  my  debt  will  be 
paid.     Will  you  promise?" 

Utterly  broken  down  by  the  kindness  and  seriousness  of 
the  president,  Scott  promised ;  he  was  released,  sent  back  to 
his  regiment,  and  died,  months  after,  fighting  bravely  in 
battle,  where  almost  his  last  words  were  :  "  Boys,  I've  tried  to 
do  the  right  thing.  If  any  of  you  get  the  chance,  tell  the 
president  I  have  tried  to  be  a  good  soldier,  and  true  to  the 
flagf,  and  tell  him  I  think  of  his  kind  face  and  thank  him 
aofain  that  he  gfave  me  the  chance  to  fall  like  a  soldier  in  bat- 
tie  and  not  like  a  coward,  by  the  hands  of  my  comrades." 

All  through  the  life-story  of  this  great  American,  as  you 
have  read  it,  you  must  have  felt  the  influence  of  his  loving- 
kindness.  We  see  it,  again  and  again  —  from  the  time  he 
picked  up  the  little  birds  and  put  them  back  into  the  nest,  to 
the  hour  where  he  pardoned  a  deserter,  because  he  could 
not  bear  to  see  the  tears  of  the  soldier's  wife  or  look  at  the 
little  baby,  which  would  be  made  fatherless  unless  this  kind- 
hearted  president  interfered. 

I  have  told  you,  particularly,  of  Lincoln's  sympathetic 
nature ;  for  after  all,  it  was  because  of  his  deep  sympathy 
that  he  possessed  the  spirit  of  charity,  and  because  of  his 
charity  that  he  was  absolutely  without  hatred  or  resentment 


234  ABRAHAM  LINCOLX  THE   AMERICAN. 

against  those  who  fought  him  openly  in  the  field  or  secretly 
at  home. 

And  yet  he  could  "  get  mad,"  even  as  Washington  could, 
under  certain  circumstances.  You  remember  how,  in  his 
boyhood,  he  hated  meanness  or  foul  play ;  how,  later,  he  was 
indignant  against  falsehood  and  ridicule ;  especially,  how  he 
could  not  endure  a  slander  against  the  Union. 

No  more  could  he  endure  an  insult  to  a  friend.  One  of 
the  few  times  when  he  was  known  to  be  really  angry  after 
he  was  in  the  White  House,  was  when  certain  officious  per- 
sons came  to  him  with  an  evil  report  against  one  of  his 
nearest  friends. 

As  the  president  listened  silently,  his  face  flushed.  Then 
he  took  the  paper.  "  Is  this  mine,  to  do  with  as  I  please?" 
he  asked.  "  Certainly,  Mr.  President,"  replied  one  of  the 
delegation.  Lincoln  walked  to  the  fireplace  and  dropped 
the  paper  in  the  fire.  "Good-morning,  gentlemen,"  he  said. 
But  that  was  a  sufficient  reply.  "  I  could  not  trust  myself 
to  reply  in  words,"  the  president  said  afterward,  "  I  was  so 
angry.  It  was  an  unjust  attack  upon  my  dearest  personal 
friend." 

At  another  time,  a  person,  strongly  recommended,  swore 
in  the  course  of  an  interview.  When  he  did  so  the  second 
time,  the  president  opened  the  door.  "  I  thought  the  sena- 
tor had  sent  me  a  gentleman,"  he  said.  "I  find  I  am  mis- 
taken. There  is  the  door,  sir.  Good-evening  !  "  Do  you 
'suppose  that  man  ever  forgot  the  rebuke? 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 
Heroic  statue  by  Augustus  St.  Gaiidens,  in  Lincoln  Park,  Chicago, 


■ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  2 HE  AMERICAN. 


237 


I  could  go  on  for  hours,  telling  you  stories  about  Abra- 
ham Lincoln.     Of  few  other  Americans  are  so  many  stories 

told;  and  not  one  but  shows 
him  to  have  been  a  remarkable 
man,  with  a  wonderful  story. 
Think  of  it !  A  poor  boy,  born 
amid  mean  and  poor  surround- 
ings ;  brought  up  on  a  rough 
frontier,  among    rough  people; 

many 
but 


failing 


givmg 


educating 


times, 

in 

spite    of   diffi- 

couragements; 

self   respected 

with  the   peo- 

whomhelived; 


never 

himself,    in 

cultiesanddis- 

making    him- 

and      popular 

pie     among 

he  becarne,  in  time,  the 

chosen    representative  of 

those  people  in  their  state 

government,  and,  at  last, 

in  the  hour  of  uncertainty    , 

and  danger,  was  selected 

by     the     people    of    the 

whole  country  to  become  1861 

the  head  of  the  nation.     Then  it  was,  that  Abraham  Lincoln 

through  four   terrible    years    of    conflict,  anxiety  and  peril, 


238 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  THE  AMERICAN. 


displayed  an  ability  for  leadership  that  was  only  excelled  by 
his  marvellous  patience,  and  a  masterly  grasp  of  public 
affairs  that  was  equalled  by  his  knowledge  of  men  and  his 
wisdom  in  handling  them. 

Fearless,  upright,  truthful,  just  and  kind,  he  would  do  any- 
thing to  save  an  erring  soldier  from  death ;  and  yet,  because 
he  knew  its  need,  he  would  not  take  one  backward  step  in 

the  mighty  war  fought 
to  keep  the  nation  un- 
divided. 

More     power    was 
given    into    his    hand 
than    king  or  emperor 
holds;  and  yet  he  was 
never,  for  one  instant, 
moved  by  ambition  or 
the  desire  for  personal 
power.     He    lived  and 
died  a  poor  man,  with 
no      desire     to     make 
money  out  of  his  nat- 
ion's distress,  and  with 
no  time  to  devote  to  anything  but  his  country's   need  and 
service.     He  saved  a  nation  and  emancipated  a  race. 

While  he  lived,  the  world  did  not  understand  his  meth- 
ods or  appreciate  his  greatness ;  but  his  countryman  learned 
to  put  their  trust  in   him  without  question,  and  to  feel   that 


THE  AMERICAN. 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  THE  AMERICAN.  239 

it  was  due  to  him  that  the  nation  passed  successfully- 
through  a  life  and  death  struggle. 

When  he  died,  the  whole  world  mourned,  and  each  year 
only  increases  his  greatness  and  the  world's  recognition  of 
his  nobility,  his  grandeur  and  his  statesmanship. 

His  is  a  story,  boys  and  girls  of  America,  that  you  can 
never  know  too  well;  for  it  tells  you  how  the  poorest  boy 
can  reach  the  highest  power,  through  ways  more  wonderful, 
and  by  paths  more  difficult  than  were  ever  trod  by  hero  in 
wonder  story  or  prince  in  fairy  tale.  Men  call  him  the 
typical  American,  the  man  of  the  people,  the  noblest  product 
of  American  civilization.  He  is  all  that ;  but,  as  time  goes 
on,  and  the  real  truth  of  his  marvellous  life  comes  to  light,  the 
world,  and  you,  too,  boys  and  girls,  upon  whom  depends  the 
future  of  the  Republic  he  saved  from  ruin  and  the  people  he 
made  anew,  will  carry  him  in  your  hearts  and  hail  him  in 
your  speecfe  as,  before  all  others,  the  American  —  the  great- 
est, wisest,  noblest,  truest  man  of  the  nineteenth  century. 


I 


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